Talking Flowers
by the Under-Cover Fangirl
Summary: A little girl falls into Wonderland, right? Wrong. The moral of the story is, not all holes lead to good places... and it just so happens that this one leads to the Makai. A very obvious metaphor for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Hiei/OC
1. Wild Geranium

_**. . . means availability.**_

* * *

_I hereby disclaim Yu Yu Hakusho, all of its characters, and the countless Alice in Wonderland references that are sure to follow. _

_Proceed with caution._

* * *

**"An author[ess] doesn't necessarily understand the meaning of [her] own story better than anyone else." **

**-Lewis Caroll**

* * *

Whenever Kuwabara left with his comrades to fight the imminent forces of evil, he fretted over what to do with his kitten.

Eikichi, his precious fawn-coloured feline, required love and attention that Shizuru hadn't the patience or the time to give him.

As he expressed this concern to his human friends one fateful lunch break in that Sarayashiki Junior High class room (referring to his extra-natural affairs as "trips out of town"), he was interrupted by the wall paper.

"I could watch your kitten if you needed it," Saika offered nonchalantly, disproving a theory or two that her voice sounded like a frog's.

Saika Ota was the sort of person that you wouldn't notice until you bumped into her. One would look at her just about as long a closed window or a tile in a restroom, so to hear her speak was shocking.

After staring wide-eyed, the boys exchanged some looks and Kuwabara asked slowly, "You would do that?"

"I like cats," she stated blankly, turning from his inquiring eyes to her book.

"Uh-" Kuwabara took a few moments to think. Keiko was allergic to cats, so she wasn't able to help either, but could he really trust a girl he barely knew?

Saika blinked blankly, waiting for his response. Kuwabara chuckled a bit; obviously she was shy. And he knew he was desperate.

"Uhhh- okay!" Kuwabara pulled his chair up next to the girl's desk, surprising both she and the boys.

"Are you sure about that, Kuwabara?" Kirishima asked reluctantly, skeptical as to whether a lamp could be trusted.

"I could watch your cat. It's the least I could do," Okubo offered, referencing the time Kuwabara virtually sacrificed himself to help Okubo keep his after-school job.

"No offense you guys, but only a girl could give Eikichi all the care he needs," Kuwabara waved off their help, and it went noticed by all but he that he was Eikichi's main caretaker.

Kuwabara began to fill Saika in on Eikichi's care requirements and the unpredictable nature of his trips, though she didn't ask why. She almost knew, anyway.

* * *

_The Night Before._

* * *

Teeth gnashing, swords clinking, demons chanting all around: Saika could smell the darkness around her.

Her senses came to her strangely in her dreams.

It was less of a blessing in her nightmares.

For countless months, she was haunted horribly by nightmares, but _this_ was a different darkness.

It was real, too real, and hot like a down-parka in the summer, as though every monster in the open top stadium stood close enough to breath down her neck, to slit open her throat.

She looked out from the outer confusion into a worse chaos in the center of the fighting ring, like a cinderblock pedestal for the damned.

In the middle of the ring appeared something that filled Saika with more terror than anything else.

There it sat: a little fawn-colored kitten, and she shot up in bed, reaching out to protect the precious, innocent kitty, but waking before she could.

Often times before she had dreams that seemed vaguely prophetic for the following day. That always bothered her.

Saika knew that she wasn't quite normal, but she didn't want to believe that she was crazy. Weird. Abnormal.

As her frustration climaxed, the window across from her bed shattered.

"Not again," she groaned.


	2. Snap Dragon

**_. . . means a presumption._**

* * *

_Don't worry. The _Alice_ quote is in here somewhere. You just have to find it!_

_Even if I don't own it. . . or _Yu Yu Hakusho_._

* * *

To describe Saika Ota would be a dull, uninteresting, human chore, in the eyes of most.

In the eyes of most, Saika was the daughter of two ex-florists, whose flowery fell into bankrupycy in Saika's grade school years, leading to the divorce of said florists.

With the remarriage of her mother to a successful business man in Saika's middle school years, she won a new father and stepsister.

Yatsu Sato was a long-legged attorney who played mah-jong and always kept his hair out of his face. Yuri Sato was a dark-haired girl a year younger than Saika who looked and dressed like a china doll. She never spoke to Saika around the house.

Kaya Sato was a mother, often found in an apron, who allowed her birth daughter to keep her father's name.

The typicality of their situation, Koenma found, was almost suspicious. _Insidious_.

More suspicious, still, were the occurrences on Saika's profile labeled "anomaly". They seemed to occur at particularly stressful times in her life, when things would fly, people would fall, and, occasionally, objects would simultaneously combust. In flames of lavender.

Though, in most eyes, this would be considered unusual, it was painfully typical of a developing human telekinetic- aside from the flames of lavender, which could be explained as the turmoil of an exceptionally powerful human psychic.

But, most suspicious of all, was Saika's involvement with the human warrior Kuwabara- dangerously close to a certain Spirit Detective. Most would call it coincidence.

Koenma didn't see through the eyes of most, but sometimes he thought, as he sighed over the latest mission, that things would be much more convenient if he did.

* * *

"All the flowers, would have very extra special powers. They would sit and talk to me for hours. . ."

Saika knelt over the flower bed in her family's front yard, singing softly, and sat alone with Eikichi, Kuwabara's kitten, as he pounced blindly through the morning glories.

Most days, she would shoot the breeze with the flowers, but on that specific Sunday she had Eikichi to talk to.

"You know, Eikichi, the flowers have their own language." The kitten poked his head curiously out of the blossoms. "The language of the flowers. Every type of flower has a special meaning. It sends a message, you know?" Putting down the hand shovel, Saika folded her palms in her lap.

"My mother taught it to me when I was younger." She smiled distantly, sadly. "You know, everyday my dad would bring her a flower back from the shop after his shift." Saika plucked a red flower from by her knee. "This camellia, it means, 'you're the flame in my heart'." She placed the flower behind her ear.

"The sun will set soon," Saika whispered to herself, and then quietly appreciated the irony.

Such afternoons, in the most domestic neighborhood in the district, Saika liked to let herself believe that there were magical things in the world. The flowers, she decided, were too beguiling to exist in a world where such things were impossible.

"I like these afternoons. Do you, Kichi-ki? Do you like being with me?" Eikichi poked his head through the flower stems and Saika scratched his favorite spot beneath his chin.

She babbled all of the typical inane sweetnesses people whisper to small furry animals. It seems even stage props appreciate cuteness.

And, as though she had suddenly forgotten her lines on stage, Saika jerked her head around to look up at the sky.

For a moment, Botan thought that she could see her.

But the show resumed, and Saika slipped off her gardening gloves, put them in her wicker basket, and went inside with Eikichi in her arms.

As she shut the door, Saika reminded herself of the thin line between fantasy and horror.

* * *

_And I pray you, Reader, take a moment to examine the parallels between this story and _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, as well as _Through the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There_, by Lewis Caroll. There will be many, many more._


	3. Sweet Pea

_**. . . means a new endeavor.**_

* * *

_"But I don't want to go about mad people." _

_"Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here."_

* * *

Shizuru lit a cigarette as she waited for her brother outside of someone's house- he had yet to say who or why.

"Hurry up little bro. I'm missing my soap," she said as she looked at her watch.

It was the sort of house one passed on the way to town, squeezed in between two others exactly like it. The only different feature was a thick nest of flowers congesting the small front yard and barely enough room to walk through them.

Kuwabara closed the front door behind him and walked down the steps with a queered expression on his face and a grown cat in his arms.

"I swear, there's something weird about that girl," Kuwabara said as he left the outer gate.

"This coming from the 'man' carrying a kitty?"

"Hey, shuddup!" he defended himself as they strolled together down the sidewalk towards home.

"It's this Saika girl. She's in my class, and she's got these eyes like an owl's. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's nice and all, but she's always staring. I didn't notice it before, but she's always looking at me weird-"

"Hey, do you feel that?" Shizuru stopped suddenly. It was the strangest sensation, as though someone had grabbed her from behind, inside of her mind. It was her spirit sense acting up.

"No, what is it?"

"Something- never mind." The siblings continued casually down the road.

_"Not smart," _Saika scolded herself. _"I'm not ready yet," _she thought as she shut the door and put back up her mental fence.

Not even Kuwabara could sense her when her defenses were up, but it came with a price.

* * *

Yusuke's cheek still had the shadow of a hand print on it.

He greeted Keiko as she worked in her family's ramen shop, with an unexpected grope, and she reacted accordingly.

There was no one left in the store when Botan entered the fluffy scene unexpectedly.

"Oh, am I interrupting something?" she cooed knowingly with her hand held impishly her mouth.

"What the hell, Botan?" Yusuke barked as he stood off of the ground, because he had previously been leaning over Keiko (or at least trying to).

"I'm here on business," she put up her hands, trying to forge a wall between herself and his anger.

"What? Already?" asked Keiko.

"Sorry, but Lord Koenma says that you should get on it right away."

"Emergency this, emergency that. This saving the world thing is getting kind of old. Don't I at least get a twenty four hour break?"

"Well, it's not exactly a world crisis. Here," Botan said as she sat down at stool in the ramen bar, pulling out and opening an office folder. Inside was the profile on a nondescript human girl with a blank faced picture.

"This is Saika Ota. Blood type O, blonde hair, gray eyes, born December 4th-"

"Skip the details, Botan," Yusuke groaned.

"You know, some detectives like to know the details of their cases."

"That's just not my style," he shrugged.

"Come on, Yusuke. Be serious," Keiko advised.

"Whatever. Just give me the facts, Botan."

"Saika Ota. She's shown spiritual awareness since childhood, but never enough to attract any attention."

"Like Shizuru?" Keiko asked.

"Exactly," Botan nodded. "You'd do good to pay this much attention, Yusuke."

"Just get on with it!"

"Well, recently she's been involved with Kuwabara-"

"Involved? And here I thought he was dating Yukina," Yusuke quiped.

"That's not what I meant! She's been taking care of his cat for him." At that, Yusuke snorted. "And recently she's shown some unusually large bursts of spiritual energy. No one has been harmed as of yet, but we're unsure of how much she knows or what her intentions are. We need you to monitor her and find out what's going on."

"Wait, I think I've seen her before," Keiko spoke, eyeing the picture keenly. "Yeah, I know her. She's in our class."

"Now that you mention it, she does look kind of familiar," Yusuke made his Sherlock face and pinched his chin.

"Yes, it says here that she attends Sarayashiki Junior High with you two." Botan speculated as she scanned the page.

"Well isn't that just the best coincidence? Why is everyone around here a psychic or a demon?"

Botan closed the folder and handed it to Yusuke. "So says the resurrected Spirit Detective."

"Well, Yusuke, it looks like you'll have to come to class now," Keiko smiled as Yusuke's groaned.

* * *

_Hiei in the next chapter. Prepare yourself._


	4. Almond Blossom

**_. . . means watchfulness._**

* * *

_"Curiosity often leads to trouble."_

* * *

Hiei knew immediately when Kurama landed below the branches around him.

The sword wielder had found a perfect spot, on the top of a tallest tree overlooking a forest valley. Although, he was forced to stay in the Tokyo region of the human realm, he'd manage to find some sweet isolation.

"I suppose you've sensed it, too?" Kurama asked.

"Yes. I'm guessing it's some human psychic, or an overly ambitious demon. Nothing interesting."

"That's what I heard. But the Spirit World has already assigned Yusuke to explore it."

"They would." Hiei jumped to the ground where Kurama stood.

Hiei smirked.

As was their custom, they spared: Hiei, the first to attack, lunged with his sword, and Kurama dodged, drawing out his rose whip. It was a dear pastime of theirs.

For a moment, they stared, each contemplating the other.

"You needn't worry," Hiei finally spoke. He replaced and adjusted his sword, then went again to his tree top. "I'm not interested in human affairs. Psychic or otherwise. Let them wage their pathetic battles. It's the Spirit World's job to interfere in private business."

He read over Kurama's thoughts, and the half-human was wondering whether Hiei would take to challenge of at least testing the supposed assassin.

Hiei sent the telepathic message,_ "Besides, it's not like she could pose a threat, anyway. There's no fun in that."_

* * *

Keiko invited Saika to eat lunch with her. She hadn't noticed it before, but the girl was stranger than she thought.

Walking down the hallway together towards the roof, Keiko initiated a conversation.

"So, Saika, have you finished the assigned reading yet?"

"Yes," Saika spoke with her breathy voice. Like speaking exhausted her, or she was perpetually afraid of something.

"Do you like reading?"

"I guess so."

"Have you read anything good lately?"

"Not really."

"How about any movies?"

"No. . ."

Keiko made a comically distressed face, though Saika saw it.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh- yeah, yeah! I'm fine. Fine." _"Yusuke, you better thank me for this!"_

Saika felt bad for not trying. Finally, someone was reaching out to her and she was rejecting it. She closed her eyes and dipped briefly into Keiko's mind. At the same time, she fell onto the floor over her ankles.

"Are you okay?" Keiko kneeled down beside her. For once, Saika had color in her face as she pulled her flipped skirt back over her behind.

"Yeah." She stood and they went back up the final stairs. "So, do you like kids?"

"Oh, yeah! I like to volunteer at the day care downtown." Keiko tossed her hair in her way and became unintentionally animated.

"That's so kind of you. Do you want to go into child care?" Saika asked, expectant.

"Yeah! I want to be a teacher. It's funny that you ask that. I just applied for a summer mentorship at a childrens' camp."

"Really?" Saika smiled as the two went to the outdoor roof, but instead of seeing a group of giggly, sweet smelling girls, she saw Yusuke Urameshi, Kazuma Kuwabara, and a mysterious blue-haired girl.

* * *

"So, do you like haunted houses?" Yusuke asked, antagonizing Saika however he could.

"Not specifically," she replied to her plum onigiri.

Five teens sat with bento boxes on the school roof, and though Saika thought that she could enjoy the dull roar of someone else's conversation, Yusuke was intent on engaging her in talk of the occult.

"What about television psychics?" he interrogated her, decidedly set on finishing the mission quickly. "What do you think of psychics?"

Botan, his supposed off campus friend, threw a black bean at his forehead.

"So, Saika, do you have any hobbies?" Botan asked with a sheepish smile, obviously trying to ease the situation.

But she went ignored, because Kuwabara and Saika were locked in a stare-down, one looking determined and the other, expressionless.

Silence fell on all of them as they watched the two watch each other.

Suddenly, Saika's face distorted, as if her lunch disagreed with her. She spun her head around, looking at the door's window, just as it shattered.

There was a stunned silence, and Saika spun back around.

"Did- did you guys see that?" she sputtered.

"I don't know, what did you see?" Yusuke folded his arms.

"It looked like someone shot the glass." Saika stared at him, with convincingly wide eyes.

"From this direction? There's no one over here," Yusuke argued.

"Look at the direction the glass fell in," Saika alleged.

"Did you hear a gun shot?"

"Maybe someone threw a rock."

"We would have seen it."

"Well, I don't know what it was." Saika was unusually animated.

"No one said that you did."

The rooftop became uncomfortably quiet again.

"I ought to go," Saika stood, only to be followed by Yusuke.

"No, you don't!"

"Let her go, Yusuke," Kuwabara demanded as he stood, still warily eyeing Saika.

Without picking up her lunch, Saika was gone. The broken glass crunched beneath her feet and the door down the hall could be heard slamming behind her.

Conveniently, the bell rang just after.

* * *

"Definitely a psychic," Kuwabara confirmed as he walked away from the school with Yusuke that after noon. Earlier that day, Yusuke told him about his mission. "I can't believe I let her near my cat."

"I was trying hard to sense some energy from her at first. It was weird. I wasn't getting anything at all, and even average humans have some of that, if they have a soul. But she was like nothing. Then it started up, like a fire, and she just had to put it somewhere. Like some kinda hot potato she had to throw. Obviously, she was trying to hide her energy. With my prying skills, she wasn't doing a good job of it."

"So what? She's just like any other psychic then?" Yusuke thought back to Genkai's challenge, when it didn't seem like human psychics posed a big threat.

"Not really. I mean, I don't know. . . When she let her power out, it was overflowing. I've never felt anything like it."

Yusuke thought a moment, then exclaimed, "I think we oughta get some experts on this case!"

Somewhere in the world, Shuichi sneezed as his mother offered him a tissue, and a tree-top shadow clenched his throat in self control.


	5. Lotus

**_. . . means mystery._**

* * *

_"I'm afraid I can't explain myself, you see, because I'm not myself, you know." -Alice_

* * *

After myriad arguments and agreements, the Spirit Detective recruited Kurama and Hiei to the task of stalking a certain suspicious young girl.

Kurama was chosen because of his detective-esque intellect and Hiei because of psychic abilities. Kurama came when asked, but promises of probation and "accident forgiveness" enticed the otherwise rebellious three-eyed demon.

Walking a block behind Saika, Yusuke and Kuwabara followed on the sidewalk as Hiei and Kurama spied from the rooftops. They stayed in contact with a walky-talkys, though there was seldom anything to report, following Saika home her a grocery errand.

Saika had two plastic bags in each hand, and as she meandered slowly through the people that passed her, it grew increasingly tedious to pay attention.

The boys grew antsy waiting, and nearly began to quarrel over code names (Kuwabara insisted on Man to Shrimp, Hiei dubbed him Idiot) when something happened that no one but Kurama picked up on.

"Wait," he spoke, and both demons turned to watch the girl. It was a twitch of the nose, a small giveaway, but she was certainly walking faster. "The mask is cracking."

"What mask?" Kuwabara asked blankly into the intercom.

The two demons hopped a roof top too quickly to be seen, and the human pair power-walked to keep up.

"She seems to have noticed us," Kurama commented.

"Wait a minute, this is what happened before! She's twitching and stuff. I think this means her power is coming out!" Kuwabara and Yusuke closed in on her, walking five strides behind.

"Hiei, looks like you're on," Yusuke grinned into the speaker.

"It's about time," he answered as he focussed on his target, whose unguarded head opened like a book.

_"Gotta get home, gotta get home, gotta get-"_

Saika's face contorted and she jerked her head around towards the roof where Hiei and Kurama stood, so they ducked below the edge. Her eyes set on a door to the building below. With a burst, it strangely came to look as if a pro-wrestler had kicked it in.

Hiei narrowed his eyes.

He and Kurama hopped onto the next roof, and he tried again into Saika's mind. This time, he was deflected immediately. It came as a shock. It felt as though he mentally ran into a brick wall, as though her thought wavelength took rock form.

By then, Saika was running. She tripped and her groceries fell over a stretch of sidewalk. The milk jug burst open, and the eggs cracked irretrievably.

Her face was still on the pavement when Kuwabara and Yusuke stopped behind her. A polite stranger offered her a hand and a kind word.

Thankful, she reached for the hand and met a pair of green eyes that terrified her.

He looked innocently surprised at her shock.

"Are you okay?" Shuichi-Kurama asked.

Saika hopped up and ducked around him, stumbling as she went. She ran around the corner as Hiei jumped to the ground.

For a moment, the boys conferred.

"Now we know. She's a visionary," Kurama stated.

"A little early for compliments, don't you think?" Yusuke quipped.

"A visionary psychic. It means that her powers take the form of visions. There are three types of psychics: introspective psychics, aura psychics, or visionary psychics. Introspective psychics can hear someone's thoughts, not often more. Hiei, for example, is an introspective psychic. An aura psychic senses a person's aura and draws strength from their own. Genkai is an aura psychic. Visionary psychics are generally considered the weakest, because they can only talk input without outputting anything. But there's no other way that she could have recognized my face."

"If she's so weak, then there's nothing to worry about, right?" Yusuke was unsure of whether a girl in a uniform skirt was much of a threat.

"Not exactly. She also seems to be a telekinetic," Kurama said, but he examined the looks on the humans' faces. "That means that she utilizes energy with her mind. And it's clear that she's repressing her abilities."

"And thoughts," Hiei added.

"What?" Yusuke asked.

"She's repressing her thoughts. She sensed me in her mind and she's holding them back."

"That's the same thing she did to me on the roof!" Kuwabara added.

"That doesn't make sense, either," Kurama said.

Yusuke folded his arms. "Why is that?"

"Hiei is an experienced psychic. I would think that he could overpower her defenses."

"So she's got you beat, midget?" Kuwabara antagonized.

Hiei's expression quickly went from annoyed to murderous.

"Why don't you-"

Before Hiei could finish his insult, Yusuke was running down the sidewalk. Reminded of their duty, the boys resumed position and pursued Saika.

Considering that she tripped and dropped her other bag again, Saika had not gotten far.

The suburban road was empty, but she ran with all of her strength anyway.

"Hey!" Kuwabara called as he and Yusuke turned the corner.

Abject fear in her eyes, Saika fumbled with her key at the house's gate. The boys were falling in quickly so she climbed awkwardly over the gate. She ran up to the door just as Kuwabara and Yusuke hopped the fence, running over her flower bed.

She flung open the door just as Yusuke's hand fell intimidatingly on her shoulder.

"You're home soon," a voice called from inside, just as a mother's head peeked around the corner.

Saika jerked frantically around, but no one was there.

"What are you doing?" Kaya's head peeked over the corner from the kitchen down the hall.

"Nothing," Saika breathed with relief, looking around and seeing no one. "Nothing."

Kuwabara and Yusuke were under the wooden stoop, and Kurama and Hiei watched it all from the roof of a house across the street.

"Any luck?" Kurama asked Hiei, whose expression was concentrated.

He pried and pushed all that he could, but he was unable to reach Saika's mind. Never before had been faced with a challenge of that nature.

"She'll have to let up soon."

"So will you," said Kurama, and aside from a narrowing of the eyes, Hiei didn't respond.

The two leapt across the street and followed Kuwabara and Yusuke into the backyard.

There were four large windows on the back of the house, and they allowed view for almost the entire house. The master bedroom, the kitchen, the living room, and a girl's bedroom were displayed proudly, and they looked like a picture book example of a home, spectacularly average.

After putting away the recoverable groceries, Saika went to the piano placed in front of the lower left window of the living room. In the background a dark-haired girl read a magazine and in the kitchen a mother prepared dinner. (Sadly, without eggs.)

Saika was noticeably frustrated. If she was holding a door closed from an intruder, then she had her feet on the walls.

When she began playing, the wall went down.

Her song was a loud, upbeat one, and it could be heard outside of the window where the boys were ducked. She seemed wholly aware of their presence.

The lyrics were generic, about defining one's own destiny. It seemed like the sort of thing a teacher started a student on.

Her voice was plain, but not unpleasant.

Hiei jumped her like a shark on a bleeding seal, but all he could find in her thoughts were notes, continually pouring notes, and the words as she sang them. When he tried go further, he hit a ten foot wall of cement preparedness.

"She's blocking you out, isn't she?" Kurama questioned, and a frightening snarl was his reply. "Looks like we underestimated her."

"Why is that?" Yusuke asked as his back for pushed against the outer wall.

"She's using the music to occupy her present thoughts, while she hides her deeper mind, simultaneously using the music as a distraction for intruders. It disturbs thought wavelengths. She couldn't have known to do that unless she knew that Hiei is an introspective psychic. It also marks out our theory that she's a visionary psychic. It's an idea, not a solid thing she could witness. Unless, of course, she knew about us before all of this."

"So, when she asked to watch my kitten-"

"She probably had something more in mind."

"This case just got interesting," Yusuke grin/snarled as Hiei continued to eye Saika playing piano. It was a common practice, and a well-known song. She had all the appearances of a normal girl.

Silently, Hiei made a vow to defeat her himself. He was not going to be outdone by a mortal girl.


	6. Nigell

**_. . . means perplexity._**

* * *

**** _"It would be so nice if something made sense for a change."_

* * *

2:23 AM. The night wouldn't end.

Saika was laying on her bed with head phones in her ears. The only thing harder than thinking with no sleep was not thinking and not sleeping. For a dream addict such as herself, withdrawals were inevitable.

On her way home from the grocery store, Saika realized that she was being followed. She tried to hide the realization, but she couldn't avoid it, and had to run home, with four suspicious followers in pursuit.

She knew they were there, somewhere outside of her house, waiting for her to mess up. Saika played piano until 10:30, which was the easiest distraction, but her mother sent her to bed and so she busied her mind as much as she could without tiring out.

If Saika fell asleep, she knew, her defenses would fall. As it was, the wall was already cracking.

The boys decided to take shifts monitoring Saika. The first to volunteer was Hiei, determinedly. No one fought him for night watch.

He sat on one of the branches in the large tree in her backyard, but the curtain was pulled over her bedroom window. Still, he didn't need it; he only needed his Jagan.

And though he hated to admit it, he was exhausted. Not from lack sleep, but from mental overexertion. He knew that she was reaching her limit, but so was he.

Soon, she would break. He wasn't going to lose to an average human.

* * *

Saika was walking down the street alone, wrapped in her jacket. She would be in serious trouble with her mom and stepdad, but she couldn't figure out how to work the coffee machine and she needed a pick-up.

Saika had her earbuds in and a can of mace in her good hand. It was dangerous to walk such a road late at night- 3:25, she checked her watch.

Clutched tightly under her arm was the dream journal she had been keeping for the past two years. As things were going, she thought that she shouldn't leave it at home. She couldn't risk them finding out.

Somewhere, in her mind, she knew exactly where her last stalker was (as the others, she found, had left), but that stalker was the only thing she was paying attention to.

When a trio of half-drunken men came of out an alley as Saika passed it, she was caught unprepared.

Hiei heard the clink of an unused mace can hitting the pavement as his target's wavelength went berserk.

Hiei leapt to the top a lamp post, and saw Saika standing, gasping for air with a book held tight against her chest, above the three men, whose only crime was to ask for directions while under the influence.

Two lay unconscious on the cement several feet away, while the other stood backed against the wall.

"What. . . what the hell are you?"

Saika turned and ran down the sidewalk, as hell broke lose on either side of her: in all directions, trash cans toppled, windows broke, and car alarms went off. It didn't go unnoticed by Hiei that any foliage in her path caught lavender flames- but didn't burn.

Tripping over her ankles and falling onto the ground, Saika rolled up into a ball. Hiei stood, arms crossed, behind her in the near-abandoned street.

On the corner, a block away, the coffee shop window shone brightly as a lighthouse in the sea of city around it.

Saika looked up under hair and saw it; she was so close.

"Don't you think it's time you stopped running?"

Slowly, Saika turned her head. In the yellow lamp light, she could only see his feet. She turned over and stared at him in horror.

"You're. . . the demon." Hiei noted: not a, but _the_ demon.

Clouds passed over the moon, and in its waning light, Saika could see his face.

"And you're my prey." His smile was probably the scariest thing about him, the most terrifying thing Saika had ever seen while awake.

A trash can, shrouded in a visibly purple aura, flew at Hiei. Easily, he leapt over it, and he turned to see it crash into a brick wall and flatten, two blocks down.

Saika reached the coffee shop; Hiei had no intention of stopping her. Looking behind her as she closed the door, she fell onto a seat cushion and caught her breath.

After stuttering and swallowing many times, Saika half-coherently ordered a triple shot expresso from the grumpy attendant behind the counter.

With her coffee (which she could barely stand, but drank for her wakedness), Saika took a seat in an empty booth in the back of the shop. With each sip, she focussed everything to readjust her mind, to gather her strength.

After she found herself adequately protected, she again turned on her music player and took in her surroundings, if only to think idle thoughts about nondescript nothings.

That was the time when she looked out of the glass shop window, out across the street, and saw, comfortably seated on a bench, the demon that watched her watching him with fiercely assured red eyes.

They glowed with a brightness that nearly pulled Saika's stomach out of her.

Standing up too quickly, Saika knocked the table and spilt the remnants of her expresso, though she didn't care.

She went to a stationed computer booth, paid the hourly fee, and immediately went to searching. With great efforts, she hid her intentions behind thoughts of finding an exorcist. She found the nearest psychic- someone called Genkai.

* * *

"Any luck?" Kurama asked as he dropped onto the sidewalk behind his comrade.

"She's planning to go after Genkai."

Kurama bristled. Kuwabara was one thing, but did she really believe she could take Genkai?

Kurama didn't say it, but they both knew: she probably meant to defeat her and consume her energy. Resulting in death.

* * *

The two watched as a taxi drove up, and Saika came out of the shop to board it. She buckled her seat belt and settled her journal in her lap, then turned to see Hiei and Kurama staring at her.

She made no expression, and didn't let out a thought. The cab pulled out of the park and headed to the east, to the mountains, to the temple

Kurama went for Kuwabara and Yusuke, as Hiei followed the taxi in hot pursuit.


	7. Poppy

**_. . . means, among other things, oblivion._**

* * *

_"Well, after this I should think nothing of falling down stairs."_

* * *

The moon hung high in the sky, but not full, though Saika thought it should have been.

Every one of Saika's dreams- and nightmares- were marked by a full moon.

So, she had to face reality.

Saika thought that being so close to the taxi driver as he drove her across town would make her feel more sane, and closer to humanity, but it only reminded her how very different she was from every other person in the world.

He dropped her off, so formally, at the towering steps of Genkai's temple. The white light that fell onto the steps created the illusion of walking up to the moon. She knew she would never get there.

The curtain of her parted hair fell over her eyes, as it often did, and she tucked it behind her ear. The reality of it all was suffocating, worse than any bad dream.

Saika walked upward at a relentlessly slow pace, wary of the dark forest around her, that seemed to shake with anticipation. As if something in it were hungry.

Again, awareness hit her: she was being followed.

And it didn't come in the form of a captured thought. She heard his footsteps behind her, hitting the pavement each time she did.

Saika picked up pace; so did he.

* * *

The past two years had been the worst by far for Saika.

Ever since her youth, Saika knew that she wasn't quite typical, and some variously dangerous situations had been effected by her- peculiarity. Luckily, her life was just boring enough for her to keep a cap on herself.

But something mysteriously specific happened one day, as she packed up from cram school. She snapped her pencil in her hands, feeling a sort of disturbance-in-the-force.

The next day at school, Yusuke Urameshi was reported dead.

Saika's dreams, which had before been her oasis, became startlingly paralleled to life as it happened.

She dreamt of demons eating children's souls, when those kids began randomly falling comatose. When she dreamt of Keiko talking with Yusuke about his death, Keiko stopped coming to school with swollen eyes.

Then, when Yusuke arrived back at school after his funeral, Saika was positive that _something_ was going on, and she had a clue as to what.

She had been keeping a dream journal. It was vague, scratchy, and torn on many pages, but looking over it in recent weeks, she found that it dimly resembled a story, of demons and spirits, the likes of which _surely_ didn't exist. Surely couldn't exist.

Saika felt like she was losing her mind.

* * *

Then, with the sound of rushing wind, another set of footsteps took place behind Saika, though she didn't turn around. She felt like a helpless accountant at an out-of-the-way ATM, being approached by a hooded stranger.

It took all of Saika's strength not to run. At least she knew that much about predators.

Saika wasn't sure when, but she realized that two other pairs of footsteps took place behind her.

The gang was all there.

She could almost envision them behind her, each of their faces set, as she had seen them in her dreams.

Saika decided, fretfully, trembling, that she would ignore them. She could ignore them! They weren't there. She was dreaming again.

To convince herself of her own company, Saika began to hum. The shaking in her voice tripled her fear.

She swallowed back her melody, choked on it, and leapt off of the steps into the forest like a deer. Like a fool.

Immediately, one appeared behind her, though she didn't see him. She felt his hand scathe her back, in an attempted grasp.

Saika grabbed at a tree, forcing it to fall with her glowing hands. In a blur of purple, it came out of the ground and fell back at her pursuers. Dust and branches flew everywhere.

Then came the _rush_. Saika was running faster than she ever had through the woods, in no general direction.

Like a hasty child, she only wanted a barrier between herself and her stalkers. Anything would do.

Searching frantically, her mind stumbled across a strange, powerful feeling resonating from someplace not too far off.

If she could reach it, she told herself, she would be safe. If she could only get away.

Her scarf caught on a tree branch, catching her throat and gagging her, but with some jerks, she tore it. They were catching up.

No; with a sharp crash of wind, two were in front of her, and two were behind. She was boxed in, and with terrible realization, she found that her purse was gone.

Looking more menacing than he had when he helped her on the sidewalk, the red-haired one held it, and went through it to find nothing of interest.

The four turned their eyes to her journal, which Saika held on to as though holding in her own stomach.

"Leave me alone!" Saika shouted futilely, only to receive narrowing of eyes.

* * *

Hiei was the first to move, and he leapt towards her, winding her with a swift kick in the stomach and sending her back hard against a tree.

"Hiei!-" Kurama called, not yet ready to attack the human, but Hiei ignored him and curiously examined the journal he had procured.

Saika tried to shout her protest, but she had never felt such force in her life and took the time to spit up a bit of blood.

Yusuke came up behind Hiei, but Kurama and Kuwabara remained wary of Saika.

"What is this?" Yusuke asked as he took the book up from Hiei's hands. Reading a few lines of the randomly opened page, he shouted, "What the hell?"

Hiei took the book back when Saika let out an enraged shout.

The two trees on either side of Saika fell out of their ground into an X, causing the four boys to leap away to avoid being crushed.

As Hiei jumped back, anticipating the girl's actions, he was surprised to find her leaping at him through the confusion, with an uncharacteristically determined look on her face.

Hiei ducked and pushed off the ground with the journal in hand, then sprang through the trees with Saika in pursuit on forest floor.

Predictably, she fell onto the ground, sliding several feet. She looked up to see Hiei standing in front of her. She looked backwards to see the others standing behind her.

In desperation, Saika let her hands illuminate in purple as Hiei unsheathed his sword. She had never before unrestrained herself that much.

Then, Saika's eyes set upon a spot on the ground. Her pursuers closed in around her, but the heat that rose in her chest.

The sight of that simple spot of grass burnt her, frightened her. Gave her an out.

Hooded and looking petrifyingly grave, Yusuke Urameshi grabbed Saika by her jacket's collar and pulled her off of the ground.

"I think you'd better start talking," he warned. Saika's eyes didn't move, and he noticed her fixation.

The four looked back at that splotch of ground. Kuwabara crept over to it slowly, then set his hand on it, only to fall into the ostensible grass up to his shoulder. He pulled himself up goofily, only to declare it be a "portal".

Again, Saika looked up at the sky. The moon still wasn't full.

"So you're a demon, are you?" Yusuke asked.

The red-haired boy disagreed, claiming that Saika's energy had no essence of demon.

"Well then, what the hell is going on?" Yusuke shouted as he clenched Saika's collar in his fists.

"Don't _you_ know?" Saika asked quietly, also confused. It was as she feared.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" he barked in her face.

* * *

Concerning Urameshi, Saika had two hypotheses: quite simply, he was a "good guy" or a "bad guy".

Considering that he had cornered her alongside a duo of demons, and held her by the scruff of her coat at Spirit Gun-point, she found the latter highly more believable.

"Give me my journal back!" She commanded unconvincingly with her breathy voice. Her hair fell in front of her eyes, but still she trained her eyes on her journal, in the hands of the small, red-eyed one.

Before any of them could deny her, both Saika's hands and eyes began to glow in an eerie purple. Yusuke let go of her collar, so as not to be burnt. Saika lunged at Hiei.

He jumped back, but as he landed, he fell through that plot of grass. As Saika would soon find out, he fell through more than the ground.

Before she could stop herself, Saika landed badly, with her arms flailing, toppling headfirst through the grass just behind Hiei.

She closed her eyes and expected impact but instead felt the sensation of flying. Her first totally inappropriate thought was, _"This is just like a dream."_

But instead of falling onto her hardwood bedroom floor, Saika crashed into surprisingly soft grass and opened her eyes to a hazy purple mist.

A subtle terror feeling crept through her blood as she felt the grass below her close softly around her, grasping her as best it could, like a living hand.

Staring down in horror at it, she could have sworn that one blade blinked open a single, staring eye.

A mortal scream rang through the Makai.

* * *

_Yes? No? Maybe? Don't you know? Must I repeat the question? Ah, Saika has entered Wonderland! Er, the Demon Plane. Same thing, really, as you'll soon find out. . . but that's a story for another chapter._


	8. Angelica

**_. . . means inspiration._**

* * *

_"Well, when I was lost, I suppose it's good advice to stay where you are until someone finds you. But who'd ever think to look for me here?"_

* * *

Sitting comfortably in a decrepit willow tree, Hiei watched the human girl below him squirm.

She heaved, shrieked, squealed. Her reaction was typical of any human. But still, by then he knew well that her appearance was deceiving.

Making a note of her position, he opened the journal that he had snatched from her and began reading.

* * *

"Wait, Kuwabara," Kurama advised.

"Why should I?" the red-head asked as he stood above the portal.

"We should get Genkai first."

"What? Why?" Yusuke groaned. "That old bag'll probably just complain and insult me."

"She's more familiar with human psychics than we are."

"We don't have time! We have to go!" Kuwabara hurried them, gesturing hastily towards the portal.

"Don't have time? You had enough time to massacre my ancient oaks. Those trees were older than your great grandparents. Surely you have enough time to visit the 'old bag'."

Genkai stepped out of the night. "So, I hear you've got a mission."

"Her name's Saika, and right now she's a human getting her first taste of the demon world. So let's cut the chit-chat this time, grandma," said Yusuke.

"I'm nobody's grandma! Disrespectful little. . ."

"Not to be disrespectful, but we are strained for time." Genkai's mumblings were interrupted by Kurama.

"First of all, what do you know about her?" Genkai asked.

"She's been cat-sitting for Kuwabara, and she knows us by what we look like."

"A visionary?"

Kurama shook his head. "No, it's not that. She appears to have more than one method of psychic perception."

"And without training?" Genkai asked, and got a nod.

"You oughta know what this stuff means, right, Grandma?" Yusuke asked.

"Huh." Genkai went and rested her hand on one of the fallen trees.

"Well? We don't have all night, Genkai!" Yusuke shouted.

"Well if you're gonna yell like an idiot, she's only going to run away! You're not dealing with a demon here. This is a human girl with more than hormones to keep you on edge. You've got to keep a level head, or she'll run off and destroy everything in her path while she's at it!"

Quickly, Genkai spun around and glared at the three boys. "If this girl has the sort of powers I think she has, that would be fatal!"

"What are you saying?" Yusuke seemed less angry.

"Look at this tree," Genkai stepped aside to let them see. "Look at the marks of her energy. These weren't inflicted by an average human psychic."

They eyed the deeply blackened wood that none of them had previously noticed.

"Psychic energy starts a special kind of flame. A kind that doesn't operate on the same energetics laws, and doesn't burn unless it's intended to."

Yusuke shouted, "Get on with it, grandma!"

"Shut up! Listen to what I'm telling you! See, these trees aren't normal, either. I received these as gifts a long time ago. . . They repel psychic energy."

"As form of protection," Kurama interjected.

"Exactly. So you can imagine what kind of intensity of power it would take to burn through this wood."

"What does this mean?" Kurama asked, alarming the other two, who thought of him as the team oracle.

"It means that the extent of her powers has yet to be revealed, but you can beat they beat simple ESP. You're sure that she's a human?"

"Yeah? Kinda," Kuwabara asked himself.

"Well. This should prove interesting. What are you waiting for? You've got to catch her, don't you?"

"Right!" Kuwabara was the first to answer, and like an Olympic swimmer, he dove headfirst into the soil and landed on the ground like an overturned crouching frog.

"The portal's closed!" shouted Yusuke. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Leave it to Hiei for the time being," said Kurama.

Before Yusuke could remind him that it was the same Hiei who zombified the last mortal girl he was alone with, Kurama added, "We can find Botan, and ask her to find us another portal. Until then, there's not much else we can do."

"Well let's go then!" Yusuke shouted, and the others complied. Finally involved in the case, Yusuke made a promise to himself then that he wasn't going to let that girl die.

* * *

Saddling her lungs, Saika forced herself to think, and by a stretch, control her thoughts.

Vaguely, she thought she ought to be as afraid as she initially felt, but she strangely felt no time for inner turmoil. Her mind felt as hazy as the bluish-purple mist around her, which she realized made it very hard to breath, especially while trying to muzzle her inner energies. Human mortality, she found wouldn't get her far in the Makai.

Something about that place drew her strength from her. She grunted loudly as her own purple blaze surrounded her. The forest seemed to eye her curiously.

Rising to her feet, she kicked away the thin, eye-balling grass that tried to clasp around her foot as she walked, creatures in of themselves.

Out of the thick woods, she wandered into a clearing. She could see over the shrubs, some bristly and grey like barbed wool, some moist and leafy with shades of orange and yellow. Instead of brown, the plants seemed to grow black and already dead.

And all of the woods seemed to tremble constantly, to creep, strangely alive and watchful in every instant.

As with darkness, her eyes adjusted to the fog. In the middle of the clearing, atop a yellow-orange leaf, sat a dripping blue segmented monster.

The thing resembled a caterpillar, but with clawed feet and sharp jaws that opened and closed around a brass hookah pipe. Its many red slanted eyes seemed to be watching a pleasant snack being made.

Diving behind a thick bushel, Saika planned an escape, but she thought hopelessly, _to where?_ There was no waking up.

"Who, are, _you_?" The caterpillar droned more loudly than she expected. It repeated itself in a mucus-drowned voice when she ignored it.

"A- a girl," she chose safely, remaining hidden.

"I said _who_, not _what_." She could hear it take a deep breath of smoke. "Don't worry. I'm not going to _eat_ you."

Slowly, Saika came from behind the bush, which seemed to have tiny mouths and be biting at her anyway.

"My name is Saika." She said with her hands behind her back. Maybe she could make it think she was carrying a weapon.

"Could you tell me- er-" It occured to her that an address would be useless. She had seen enough fantasy movies to know. "Could you tell me how to get back to Earth?"

"You mean, the Human Realm?" It smoked a puff lazily and breathed it out as an "o".

"Yes!"

"Hm, can't help you there. Once you're in the Makai, there's really no way out!" It chuckled to itself, but seeing how dejected she was, it added, "but considering you're human, I'm sure the Spirit World is sending someone to pick you up right now. "

"Really?" Saika began to feel safer. "So I can wait here, and-"

"I wouldn't do that," the blue caterpillar advised as it took another puff.

"Why is that?" Saika asked hesitantly.

"You see, you've come to me at an interesting time, dear." At that moment, Saika heard a sort of crispy sound. She watched a white papery substance inching up from the bottom of the caterpillar.

"What-" she nearly asked but realized.

The growing cocoon hastened, and the monster spoke, "I suggest you get far from here, girl. I can't move now, but I have an hour in this cocoon before I'm coming after you. Really, there's nothing you nor I could do about," it droned as the cocoon closed up to its neck.

"What? But why?"

"I never said we were friends, child. I can't help my instincts; I just said I'm not going eat you. . . yet." Upon seeing the horror in Saika's face, it said before its face was covered, "Welcome to the Demon World."

Saika's knees began to shake, and liquid fear dripped into her veins. Her fists trembled and she didn't care to move her hair out of her eyes.

Bursting into a run, she ran into the trees again. With her eyes curtained, it wasn't long before she tripped and fell. Grabbing a tree that she landed by, she wept aloud in hopelessness.

"I don't deserve this," she said to herself. "There are braver girls than me!" Her voice turned shrill with panic, fear, and confusion. "I never asked for this. I don't want to be. . ."

But then her breath hitched. The tree in her arms had shifted. Looking up, she saw a four-eyed crow leap of out of the tree mouth open towards her. On reflex, she covered her head and prepared for whatever nightmare this was to be over.

She heard a slicing sound, felt a splatter, and lowered her hands, only to see a wretched purple goo spilt on the forearm of her jacket.

"You need to control your emotions," a boyish-looking man in front of her advised. "Demons here can smell fear, especially when you're screaming about it. And they love wounded targets."

He turned around and sheathed his sword, revealing his face. The one from before.

"You-" she began, fear dripping from her voice, but stopped. It was the three-eyed monster that chased her before, as a savior, he wasn't so threatening. "What's your name?"

He grunted in his throat, as though answering her would be idiotic. Slowly he circled her, while maintaining distance.

"Hey- give me my journal back!" she shouted with uncharacteristic conviction.

"Hn. You should be grateful I saved your life." He turned his glare on her. "Don't mistake me. I don't intend to be your guardian back to the Human World. I could care less what happens to you. But there's something I want to find out."

Hiei walked slowly around Saika, like a beast around its prey, though he remained expressionless. "I've got the most of it figured out. These visions you've had in your dreams, they let you know about the Spirit Detective."

"_No_, you can't look at that!" she desperately shouted.

"I guarantee you don't know as much as you think you do!" Hiei yelled terrifyingly, silencing her. "You never stopped thinking that 'Wolfsbane' and I were irredeemable demons, did you?"

"I- I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't play stupid," he narrowed his eyes. "And maybe you're right."

Blinking slowly, she said, "So that makes you Nightshade?"

"In a way, yes. Forgetting those names."

"There's a reason," Saika whispered.

"What?" Hiei barked and turned.

"I said, there's a reason. Wolfsbane is a natural flower-" She swallowed hard. "-in the human world. It's a beautiful blossom, and a quick-acting poison. And Nightshade. . . it's one of the most toxic plants known to man. Sometimes called. . . devil's cherry," she breathed out, looking up into Hiei's bright red eyes.

"Well, thanks for the botany lesson." He snarled as he approached the twitching demon crow and skewered it once again into death. "Though I'm not quite as evil as you seem to think I am." The words sounded like a joke.

"I know that." Saika cleared her throat. "If you were, you would have let me die."

Hiei's scowl returned. "Don't think that I'm working pro bono. After this, my name is cleared from Spirit World records and I won't be working as their errand boy any more."

He stopped and spun around to her. "But here's what I don't understand."

Saika said nothing, but her lungs squeezed out all air as he approached her again, cornering her by the tree.

Hiei lowered himself to Saika's level, bending over to stare directly into her face with all of the malice and intimidation that he could muster. She pressed up against the tree trunk to distance herself.

He whispered, "But I want to know _why_ you felt the need to protect this journal so long. What does it matter to you what the Spirit Detective is doing? Or what happens to his fool friend's _cat_?"

"I- I-" Saika tried to begin, but his presence seemed to weigh so heavy upon her chest that she couldn't form breath, let alone articulate a thought.

Hiei's eyes didn't move, but he watched Saika's grey eyes flip back and forth between his, trying to define intent from his questions. But even with him bearing down on her, her last line of mental defense didn't weaken.

Staring into her eyes, he tried to press into her mind, but failed.

With an invisibly swift swish, he turned away from her and walked off.

"But it's not important to me. I could care less what you're thinking," he lied.

"Well, are you coming?" he half turned his head to her and asked. "That kemushi demon will hatch soon, and that crow seems to have some hungry brothers." Saika looked to the tree branches above her and saw some perching demons eyeballing her.

On impulse, Saika lifted herself off of the ground and chased after him, settling in pursuit behind his back just close enough to be protected and just far enough behind not to have her throat ripped out if he decided he disliked her again.

"But you have to give me my journal back," Saika made him promise, though he said nothing. After that, neither of them did.

* * *

Hiei led Saika to a clear stream of pure water. Strange, demonic plants grew all around it, so she asked if it was really safe to drink.

"If you want to die of poison spore. I brought you here to wash off your arm."

She looked at her the arm of her jacket and saw a green crust where that blood-sludge had been.

"The crows here have a special kind of poison. It's to prevent anything from wanting to eat them, and it shouldn't be long before the acidic properties take affect," he nonchalantly informed her.

She wildly threw off her jacket to reveal a sickeningly green rash on her arm that appeared larger than she had remembered the splooge to be.

"What are you waiting for? Wash it off!"

Woken from her horror, Saika listened and submerged her arm in the stream, trying to rub away the tingles.

"Just be glad none of it got in your mouth. That poison is meant to interact with the stomach acid to burn from the inside out."

Saika began to scrub more quickly.

Hiei leapt to a tree branch, and Saika called after him, "Wait, what about my journal?"

After snorting in contempt, Hiei asked, "Don't you mean, 'what about me'? And what exactly makes this journal so important to you?"

"It's. . ." she began, but stopped.

"Well, I'll find out. I haven't read it all yet, but I plan on it."

She began to interject, but he added, "Don't worry, I'm sure the Spirit Detective will find you soon. Just try not to die before then." He leapt to another tree branch.

He smirked deviously. "If you want this book so much, come and get it."

With that, he disappeared into the forest.

Saika ran a short distance after him, but she knew that he was long gone.

* * *

About that time, the obvious occurred to her: she was no longer in Tokyo. At some point in that conversation, she abandoned her home world logic.

Yet another revelation was coming on her.

What about her powers? All of her life, she struggled to hide them and made habits of seclusion to prevent them from being noticed. She could stand for being the quiet girl, but she didn't want to be a freak.

A headrush hit her; the gas in the atmosphere was making her sleepy, nauseous.

As she bent quietly over the grass, a blade blinked an eye open.

Yes, she knew that her inhibitions wouldn't hold up in a world of demons.

"I'm not gonna die here," she promised herself. "I'm not gonna die."

Even if it meant going against everything she had taught herself, Saika knew she had to get that journal back. It was all she really had.

And secretly, Saika admitted that she was curious. She wanted to know exactly what she could do, for once, without holding back.

It wasn't the world she knew, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, she began to realize.

The crows that stalked her from the tree branches fled, as her aura flared.

* * *

Hiei knew that he would get crap from his team for it; hell, he would be pissed at himself.

But as he circled the girl Saika's perimeter, he could not, even through her fear, get into her inner thoughts.

Usually it was a cake walk raiding a human's hopes and dreams.

In a way he wouldn't admit, that maddened him. So he would test her, teasing her with what she wanted and letting the demon world work its ways.

The demon realm had a tendency to conceal ancient secrets, as well as reveal them; for the time being, Hiei reclined on a tall branch and went through the only portal he had to his target's mind, that journal.

* * *

_Are you curious yet? Hope I haven't kept you guys waiting too long._


	9. Anemone

**_. . . means forsaken, as the blood of Adonis._**

* * *

_"Seems to me they could learn a few things about manners!"_

* * *

Here's where she went wrong: Saika automatically assumed that she would only have to deal with crows and creepy plants.

Not long after she met with that mysterious demon, she came into a clearing in the woods. She was nearly swooped up by a gigantic condor.

That is, it _looked_ like a condor.

It's not to say that she knew her birds, but whatever it was, it had talons large enough to pick up her stepfather's expensive American car. She leapt with all of her strength and barely missed its deadly grip.

Releasing a tree-shaking screech, the bird came around and tried to attack her again.

Instead of moving away like she should have done, Saika summoned all of her focus, nearly cracking her teeth with her concentration. Even with the risk, she had to try _something_.

A tree to the right of her began to tremble, and as though releasing the hold on a long closed door, a chilling power flooded through her like ice water.

The tree came quickly across the field, striking the demon in its side and toppling it to the ground with surprising force.

Approaching its body slowly, she watched the crushed bird twitch for a while, then stop.

Before she could think too much on this, several more screeches rang from the woods, and the bird she nearly brushed called out to answer them.

Instinctively, Saika ran through the trees, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Yes; it was there! She felt it.

Like liquid energy, she felt the world around her becoming closer, less frightening. Her senses were strengthening.

Yes! She would find that man, reclaim her journal, and return to her world. She knew she would.

Just as she promised herself this, Saika fell over her feet and reacquainted herself with the ground.

* * *

_-I can still remember the exact look on her face when she noticed the purple fire in her hair. Kind of like, "I wish we had gone to the other sushi place", but way worse._

Hiei shuddered and shut his eyes tight.

It wasn't often that he laughed, and when he did, it was more for sarcastically rhetorical purposes. He would not laugh at the musings of that human girl. He would not.

By mediated self-control, he held his chuckler as he read on.

_I'm pretty sure that teacher never came back. She's in an institution now, I think. But that was about the time I was learning to control_

Then the words cut off.

Humans, Hiei decided, were most afraid of those things they did not understand.

Squeezed in between the prophetic dreams were vignettes from Saika's life, collections of her thoughts and experiences. Most were illegible, considering he barely had the capacity to read the writings of humans.

But the escapades of this unyieldingly nonchalant human girl wouldn't cease to amuse him. Though he would not admit it, he was enjoying the act of reading her thoughts more than he wished he would.

It would be more incentive to penetrate her mind later, he told himself.

At present, he walked alone through the tree, keeping tabs on her energy. Surprisingly, he took pleasure in what he read.

_Once, my mother enrolled my in ballet. It was only one class. She said it would help me grow into an "elegant young woman", but I just think she didn't want me falling over myself anymore._

_I can remember standing before all of those pretty girls with my eyes wide. The teacher asked me to demonstrate what we'd learned, but everyone knew I couldn't do it. Right when I blinked, somehow all the mirrors in the room broke in big pieces and fell to the floor, all around the studio. I never took ballet again._

* * *

Wandering idly with a deflated pride, Saika came into a place that seemed to resonate with more wonder than evil.

The grass seemed shorter and better tamed. The black trees contoured beautifully, framing the visage before her. The lavender sky softened and all manner of indescribably lovely plants grew along the path that Saika walked.

Delicate yellow blossoms with oranges lips lined the ground. An absolute spectrum of flowers that Saika had never imagined grew up to the tree tops. Some grew on short stems like purple spurts of fur, others like straight silver daggers. A bulbous blue flowers with subtle yellow markings grew tangled with dark blue leaves. Some pink flowers had spiny petals that grew out and around from the head like a glass orb. An array of pastel florets grew around each other with wild, flayed petals.

And yet all of these foreign flowers sat up high, taller than Saika.

In the center of the garden hung a large willow tree, with moss falling over the garden and uniquely patterned butterflies fluttering around the branches. Cactus vines wound around the ground, somehow imperializing the flowers in their untouchability.

Yet upon closer inspection, the flowers seemed to have shadows of faces, with peculiar markings where one might imagine eyes and mouths to be.

Still, in shape, size, and color, they all looked like wild creatures, foreign yet distinctive.

But more, Saika was drawn in by the scents. Each alluring, each exotic, the flowers all called to her without noise.

Self control alluded her, and she fell under an illusion; what was life, but a dream?

And the more she looked on the flowers, the less they seemed unfamiliar.

They felt like something from a dream, something that she remembered and could finally see with crystalline clearness.

Illusions often work that way, with fearful intimacy.

And though somewhere in her mind she knew it wasn't wise, Saika walked closer and closer to the flowers, stroking the petals as she passed. They seemed to move with her.

She began humming a tune, a repetitive melody she could have sworn she never heard in her waking.

Just as she caressed the head of a yellow-brown striped flower, she heard the melody coming back to her in a purr.

"Are there any words for to song?"

Dream over.

Saika jumped back, making a small shriek of shock.

"How rude! It's a simple question."

"You- you can talk?"

"Why, of course she can talk!" a thick pink flower crooned pretentiously.

Her twin beside her added, "If there's anyone worth talking to!"

They both giggled, if that was at all possible.

"You're- you're demon flowers," Saika reminded herself.

"As opposed to what, exactly?" a high up violet-looking flower asked, as it was grown around a tall tree.

"Have any of you seen a dark-haired man?" Saika asked, ignoring the violet.

"What's a man?" the thick pink flower asked.

Saika gathered her thoughts, then asked, "A- a short stemmed moving thing with black petals, and black thorns coming from its head. It's not all too polite, either."

"I suppose that's how most motile flowers are!" the violet called out to Saika.

"I haven't seen anything like that," a few flowers called out, while others shook in agreement.

"Why don't you come over here and sing to us?" a lotus called.

"Come sing to us!"

"Come sing to us. . ."

"I can't right now," Saika said, though she was seriously tempted.

"Why not?"

"Why not?"

"Why not?"

"I've got to find that- that flower, because he's got something of mine."

"Sing us just one song. Please!"

"Just one song." They cajoled and begged.

"No, I can't-" Saika was in the middle of turning them down when their combined scents drifted shrouded nose, somehow stronger than before. "Maybe just one song," she decided dreamily.

Sitting down slowly against the stem of the striped flower, she asked, "What kind of flower are you?"

"I'm a flower of Sorrel Thicket."

"Sorrel Thicket," many other flowers echoed.

"I mean, what sort of flowers?"

"Sorrel Thicket," the flower continued to murmur.

No songs that she consciously knew came to Saika's mind, but she began to sing the words, "_All my little plans and schemes, lost just like forgotten dreams. . ._"

The flower slowly enfolded her, and Saika shut her eyes. As the flower held her, the rest of wild garden moved, as though to make room.

"_Seems that all I was really was doing was waiting for. . ._" Though she remained awake, Saika could no longer form thought. The scents were pouring over her, pouring into her a euphoria she had never known.

"Who are you?" Saika spoke thoughtlessly.

An elegant brown flower cuddled closer to Saika and spoke with equal blankness, "I think I was the Queen of the Nile. What was my name?"

"Sorrel Thicket," a smaller blossom answered.

"Sorrel Thicket," the brown flower repeated.

Another flower, beautiful and red, mourned, "I loved Aphrodite, I did. Where are you? Where am I? I'm blood spilt for you, I'm. . ."

"Sorrel Thicket," some scattered flowers continued to whisper.

"Sorrel Thicket," Saika repeated.

_Sorrel Thicket_, and the words echoed in her empty mind, against walls within her conscious. The emptiness and pressure formed a crack in those walls, though, and another thought shot through her mind like lightning.

It was an image: the image of a long forgotten dream, of a beautiful yellow flower, of beautiful adorning vines, of gently closing jaws. . .

When that thought banged against the inner side of her forehead, Saika leapt up, and broke a few vines that had come over her.

"What are you doing?"

"Sing us a song. . ."

"No, I've got to get out of here!" Saika said more to herself than anything. With her wrist held to her nose to keep out the hypnotizing scent, she tried to run to the other end, but a vine reached out and grabbed her wrist.

"Stay here. . ."

"Sing us a song. . ."

"The spores will bring you peace."

Looking up, Saika could see that the moving vines all connected and wrapped around the willow tree in the garden's center. In a deeper, more menacing tone, the tree seemed to chant, "Sorrel Thicket."

"Hey!" Saika kicked the vines off of her ankles, and stood up. "Hey, stop this!"

She ran to the tree's gigantic trunk and began tearing the vines off of it. A deafening roar rang out, and the vines began to entangle her like snakes.

"Let- let me go-" But before she could think to do anything, the vines wrapped around her neck, and pulled her against the tree's trunk, ensnaring her around.

There were no plans to be made. All Saika was aware of then was the vine that choked her and the painfully sweet scent that violated her senses.

Her body rejected the smell, and she struggled futilely against her bonds. To no avail. Saika's strength began to give out, and her vision blackened. She was passing out, and if she did, she knew she would never wake up.

Still, she could feel her conscious slipping from her, and she reached the point where she was no longer capable of caring. She was falling into a peaceful sleep.

Eyes shut, ensnared in vines: her body fell limp.

Then, without precursor, the eyes behind her fallen lids glowed with purple. Saika's aura burnt against the willow, and it cried out again.

But the purple essence continued to burn against the vines of the tree and the black bark with sizzling ferocity.

The rest of the flowers, throughout the garden, cried out as the vines that trapped them were burnt away.

Saika didn't see any of it, because she was hunched over on the ground, holding her bruised throat.

She did, however, turn up in time to see the petals fall away from all of the flowers, and blue lights drift slowly from their centers into the sky.

As they passed, some whispered, 'thank you'.

Saika stood and walked away from the whining tree.

She went to an already withering red petal, picked it up, and said to herself before leaving, "I'll never look at anemone the same."


	10. Daffodil

**_. . . means uncertainty._**

* * *

_"Tut, tut child! Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."_

* * *

"Do you smell something?"

"It's you, idiot!"

"No, I swear, it smells like human!"

"Eh, you're smelling things."

Saika stumbled upon a group of squatting humanoid demons in a manufactured forest clearing. They sat on tree stumps that they appeared to have recently crafted.

She felt it appropriate to call them humanoid, because they looked to walk on two legs, though they had other, stranger features (i.e. horns, beaks, scales, etc).

With clubs and swords set beside them, they had all kinds of foreign meat set on the cut trees, like a crude sort of dinner table.

Furthermore, they didn't look all too scary. More, silly.

"Well, boys, a toast to another successful raid!" The largest one said aloud, whose nose was large and whose head was decked with a peculiar headdress with cards folded into it. He had folds of fleshy red fat falling over his sheath dress.

Instead of lifting glasses, though, they held decapitated heads up by their hair and began to sip the blood from the misplaced necks.

Saika had to hold her mouth to keep from vomiting, but a clear gagging noise came from her throat and all of the demons turned to look in her direction.

"What's that, there?" one amongst them called out.

"I've got it," a skinny, long-eared one with wispy whiskers unsheathed he sword and assured them.

With her arms held up in front of her, Saika emerged from the wood.

"I thought I smelled something!" a small, rat-like demon expressed.

"Dibs!" one of the demons shouted, and the others began to argue, gathering up their weapons for a deliciously rare kill.

"Now, men. . ." The hatted one said quietly. "_Will you all shut up_! Oh!" And as though he never had yelled so murderously, he pulled a notebook from his pocket and wrote something down.

There was silence among them as he wrote, then hid his notebook again.

"We couldn't treat a fleshy little human that way, could we? She's just joining our party, there's no need for _haste_. Here, why don't you sit with us and have a drink?" he offered kindly.

There was something suspicious in his voice, Saika thought, but maybe that was because there was blood on his lips.

"There's no room for her kind here!" A reptilian one shouted.

"No room!" A few others echoed.

"Did I tell you to _shut up_?" their leader demanded. "Really, now, that's no way to treat a lady. Come and sit, dear."

The demons resettled themselves, but Saika remained frozen where she was.

"Didn't he tell you to _sit_?" The long-eared one hissed. Looking at him warily as she approached and sat down, Saika couldn't help but see him as rabbit like, though he was anything but cute.

"So what're you doing, here, girl?" the leader asked.

"I- I don't know."

"Ah, you've been spirited away," he concluded knowingly. "Here! Take a drink." He threw a bloody head that landed in front of her on their crude table.

"Come now, be polite!"

To this, Saika had no response. The leader leered at her for a while, and she had no idea how to interpret his look.

"Oh!" he repeated himself from before, pulling out a notepad and writing something down.

"He thinks he's something of a writer," a beaked fish demon leaned over and said to Saika as he gestured with his thumb.

"But getting inspired in the heat of battle doesn't help," the rabbit-looking demon complained.

"We have our dinner, don't we?" the leader asked flippantly.

"We could have a feast!" the rabbit demon shouted.

"We _could _have a feast. . ." The rat-looking one, with scarily pointed teeth, eyed Saika covetously.

"Now, we haven't properly introduced ourselves!" the leader called all of them to attention, and Saika was glad to have the most of their eyes off of her. "This is my name."

The fat, hatted one took out his notepad and wrote the word "Hata" on it for her.

"It's like that, only you pronounce like you say 'splatter'. That's what they call me, Blood Hata."

"No, they don't."

"Remember what we said about _shutting up_?"

He then wrote the word "Hai", and gestured to the long-eared one. "Say it the same way."

She tried the both of their names on her tongue and found something strange. Before she could speak, the rat called out, "Hey, what about us? I'm-"

"_You'll be important when you start pulling your weight in battle_!" Hata boomed.

Everyone else remained frozen until he asked, "Now what's your name, human?"

"Ota," Saika whispered, feeling her last name the best choice.

"What was that? Speak up!" Hata ordered after taking a deep drink of blood. He spat some from his mouthful onto her.

Recoiling in disgust, Saika nearly squealed, "Ota!"

"That's better. Ota! What a strange name! You humans and your vowels."

"I'm surprised you haven't been eaten by a kemushi yet! They molt this time of year," Hai spoke casually wiping his mouth.

"Hey, are you gonna eat that?" The rat demon pointed to the decapitated head before Saika, and she shook her attached head vigorously 'no'.

The buck-toothed rat grabbed the head from before her, and after taking a deep drink, began to chew into the neck.

Upon seeing her expression of abject horror, the rat demon asked defensively, "What?"

"Don't you see you've insulted our guest!" Hata shouted.

"No, no," Saika assured him, but before she could say anything else, Hata took the pen he had written with, and stabbed the begging rat demon in the neck. He fell off of his stump and the rest of them went on eating as though nothing had happened.

Their madness on dawned Saika. Cold and calculating was one thing, but she couldn't handle crazy.

It took all of her self control not to turn tail and run, because she knew well that she couldn't outrun them. But if all of the denizens of Demon World were as sparingly sane as that demon band, she feared how long she would last. The confidence she had before shriveled.

"Root of liverwort for ink," Hai nodded knowingly. "Does the job, all right. So about those kemushi-"

"Kemushi!" The repitilian demon shouted. "They're nothing! You get a charun after you, and then you're in trouble!"

"What- what are those?" Saika asked timidly.

"Kemushi are caterpillar demons that live for only a week. They go into cocoons halfway through and come out to feast on any living things they can find. They're pretty harmless in their segmented form, but once they metamorphose, they're really dangerous."

"One killed my brother, you know," a beaked demon added.

"I- I think- I saw one of those."

"You did? But how?" the reptilian questioned.

"It was going into its cocoon."

"Not good, then you know who'll it'll come after once it's molted!" Hai said, looking sadistically pleased.

"And- what's a charun?" Saika desired a change of subject.

"Charuns are giant birds that stay live by families and swallow up anything they can. But once they set their sights on a prey, they never let them go!" the reptilian told her.

"Wait," Saika began, and they all turned to her. Cautiously she asked, "Do those have. . . red eyes?"

The reptilian nodded.

"And huge wings?

He nodded.

"And long talons? And grey and white feathers?"

They all looked at each other.

"So, you've seen a charun, have you?" Hata asked with bubbling delight.

"I- I fought it and beat it."Somewhere in her mind, Saika thought this would put her further into the demons' good graces, which at that time seemed like a good idea.

After hearing this, a moment of silence passed, and the most of the demons began to laugh.

"There's- there's no way!"

"A little girl like you!"

"Hahaha! That's the best thing I've heard all day!"

A fist came down on the table. Tensely, they all looked to Hata.

"You fools would do good to not overestimate your understanding." He wiped his mouth slowly and they all stared.

"Why. . ." he began. Then a few moments of silence passed.

Hai leaned forward to hear what his leader had to say. All of the subordinates widened their eyes, as though it might help them understand.

Saika immediately realized that she had not been masking her energy. It hadn't occurred to her in such a strange setting.

This revelation came to her as Hata opened his mouth and said in the gravest tone, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Most of the demons seemed to fall out of their seats.

"Are you serious?"

"I thought you were gonna say something really important!"

"Come on! Another riddle?" Hai put his palm to his face in disappointment. "You try too hard to be artistic."

"But wait," Hata spoke slyly and put his finger up. "This one has a point."

He cleared his throat and all were silent again.

"If you can tell me why a raven is like a writing desk," Hata said as he looked into Saika's eyes, "then you'll know why you're here."

All of the demon band looked to Saika.

"Tell me, Ota, why are you here?"

"I- I don't know. I came here by accident."

"That's not so," he assured her as he folded his arms and shook his head.

"How do you figure that?" Hai asked on Saika's behalf.

"Because, if she were a normal girl, the sort of human we could kill with no trouble, wouldn't you have been put out by the toxin in the atmosphere?"

"Oh. . ."

"I hadn't thought of that. . ."

"Yeah, 'cause most humans pass out immediately, who get spirited away. . ."

"Of course, now here's the question. What exactly brings you here, girl?" Hata leaned his elbow on his knee and stared at Saika.

They waited for an answer, but she didn't give them one.

"Yes, that's the question, you know." Hata concluded, as if the question were its own answer. "Now, why is a raven like a writing desk?"

"I- I don't know."

"Hahaha, see? Now neither of us has got an answer!"

Hai shouted in irritation, "You said you had a point!" But Hata ignored him.

In an uncomfortable contact, Hata slapped Saika with too much force on the back.

"You've really got _no_ idea what's going on!" Thankfully, Hata took his arm and pulled a card off of his hat. "So this is your answer right here, girl."

It didn't go unnoticed by Saika that the whole of the demon band seemed to recoil on sight of the card.

Hata held it in front of her, and she analyzed the archaic red decor on the card's back.

"You know, we're not all brawn here, Ota. To survive in this world, you've got to have some magic on your side." In something Saika hoped was an under-the-sleeve trick, Hata rubbed the card between his fingers to reveal several more cards.

He spread those cards on the table and there appeared even more cards, a near deck full. He pulled them back together again and casually shuffled them in the air, flipping them back and forth between his hands.

"I think you might be familiar with this kind of incantation. Have you ever heard of tarot cards?"

Saika nodded slowly.

"Humans like to replicate these and pretend to give meaning to them, but it takes a lot of practice to make them really work." He set the deck on the log before him, then spread the cards out over each other. "Take your pick."

Instead, Saika looked warily at the other demons, who wouldn't meet her eyes.

"But, why-"

"It's important you learn. Even seemingly meaningless things have purpose," Hata spoke in a suddenly menacing tone. "Stupid riddles, random coincidences. . . there's a theory to chaos, you know. A method to the madness. Some people are afraid of knowing what will happen, what the meaning of those things are. They deny Fate. But I take pride in it."

Saika looked on, terrified, and could have sworn that his eyes darkened.

"We're the same that way, aren't we, Ota? So why don't you just pick a card. You get three cards, and though you mightn't realize it, you're compelled by your spiritual conscious to pick the cards that symbolize your past, your present, and your future. So the first one you pick can't hurt you anymore."

Slowly, Saika pulled a random card out of the line as the demons held their breath.

Hata flipped it over, and revealed a drawn picture of a woman in blue robes.

"Ah, The High Priestess. I was right about you." Hata pick up the card and held it in between his fingers. "The Priestess means secret knowledge, and unrevealed wisdom. It's an upright card, meaning without darkness. You've had secrets, isn't that right, Ota?"

Saika didn't need to say anything for Hata to see the answer on her face.

"Well, then. . ." he set the card face up before her on the log. "Care to draw another?"

Though her better instinct told her not to, Saika's eagerness for the cards and herself forced her to take another one without thought.

She couldn't help but realize that fortune telling had nothing to do with how a raven related to a writing desk, but she realized at that point that there probably was a method to Hata's madness.

In the same way as before, Hata turned over the card. "The Hanged Man."

"What does that mean?" Saika asked, her curiosity making her braver.

"It means presently you're going through rebirth, for a worth-while cause."

For a moment Saika was filled with confidence, as though she had meaning in her demonic endeavor.

"Well?" Hata asked. "Don't you want to know what's _going_ to happen?"

Saika reached out before she could stop herself and hesitated over a card in the center. At the last moment she drew a final card from the end of the line, holding it up herself.

"What is it?" Hata asked, a smirk evident on his face.

"_I wouldn't tell him if I were you_," a dark voice rang from seemingly everywhere throughout the trees.

"Who's there!" All of the demons stood with their drawn weapons.

With some sudden slashes by an invisible fighter, the throats of many of the demons were slit immediately.

Saika knew.

"Come out and fight!" Hata shouted, throwing another tarot card from his hat toward a blur of motion he saw. Surprisingly, it penetrated the wood and stuck into the tree.

The short man in the black cloak stood in front of Hata and Hai, as the remaining demons dropped their weapons and fled.

"Idiots!" Hai called after them.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you not to play with your food?" he asked, then leapt and sliced Hai across the chest. "It'll get cold."

"This is none of your business, Three-Eyes!" Hata, the only one left alive, remained aggressive.

"It just so happens that this human is my responsibility for the moment. And I bet you were going to feel so clever. Whatever card she drew, you were going to say, 'it mean Death', right?"

Hata defensively shouted, "-no such thing!"

But Hiei continued. "I know your type. Posers like you can't resist a good punchline. Well, here's one."

With that, Hiei leapt and in an instant, feigned to slice through Hata's neck. When he moved to block, Hiei bashed him over the head with the blunt of his sword, knocking off Hata's headpiece.

"Not today, cretan. The next time you decide to play a game of Fate, play solitaire." With that, he pierced Hata in the stomach, and the weaker demon fell limp.

Instead of expressing surprise, Saika continued staring wide-eyed at her second-time savior. A solid opinion of him refused to take form.

"And you. Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust an oracle?"

Surprisingly, she responded, "Didn't yours ever tell you not to steal?"

"No, actually," he darkly smiled a sort of grimace. "What's got you so bold? Are you thinking that I'm really so scared to let you die?"

"That's not what I was thinking at all," Saika answered blankly.

Then, for the umpteenth time, Hiei pressed his psychic strength against Saika's mind and got nothing.

There was no way for him to tell what she was thinking. A flare of rage went off within him.

Pointing his sword at her, he shouted, "Make no mistake! The next time you decide to have a tea party with a D-class pack of mongrels, don't expect me to come and save you!"

"I would expect something like that." She paused, then added, "I just want my journal back."

Hiei's face twisted into a smirk. "Then you'll just have to take it back."

He expected her to look for her journal on his person, but instead she looked at the tarot card still in her hand. Again, he was angered by his inability to read her.

"_Realize_ that I didn't kill those demons. And it seems to me like you've got a lot of things coming after you already, so you'd better enjoy your head start."

Deliberately, Saika ignored him, and asked, "'The Tower'. What does that mean?"

Snorting in disrepute, Hiei said, "If you honestly trust in something as contrived as fortune-telling, it's whatever you delude yourself to believe. 'Fate' is for fools and Ice Maidens."

Saika opened her mouth to express her belief in those cards, especially with the accuracy of the other two, but she instead sealed her lips and analyzed the unusually hard paper in her hands.

When she looked up again, Hiei was gone.

* * *

_The Tower, in major arcana tarot reading, means change, conflict, and violent loss._


	11. Aconite

**_. . . means misanthropy._**

* * *

"Botan!" a voice rang through the Reikai executive office. "Botan!"

Yusuke repeated himself as he burst down the door. "Koenma, where's Botan?"

"I don't know. Why don't you try screaming some more?" the toddler at the desk asked.

"_Botaaan!_" the Spirit Detective shouted at the top of his lungs, as Kuwabara and Kurama behind him covered their ears.

"I was being sarcastic," Koenma frowned. "Botan's away on some business right now."

"Well, we need her _now_!" Yusuke demanded.

Kuwabara added, "Yeah! Saika's trapped in the Demon World with Hiei, and the portal's closed!"

Koenma's papers flew out from in front of him as he slammed his fists down on the table.

"What? How could you lose a simple human target?"

At that moment, Kuwabara and Yusuke simultaneously began spouting off excuses while Kurama rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Enough, enough!" Koenma silenced them. "I knew you guys were idiots, but this is ridiculous."

"Hey! I get enough lectures from teachers, Koenma. We need another portal, _now!_"

"You think it's as simple as 'opening another portal'? These things take time! Especially with the tense relations between Spirit World and Demon World-"

"Get on with it, Koenma! The next time we find Saika it could be in your waiting room!"

Sighing, Koenma opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a silver ring. "Take this. It's a portal sensor, so you'll be able to find the hole I make in the barrier."

"Where will that be?" Kuwabara asked.

"Wherever I can put it. That's what the band is for. Just wear it, and when the gem turns red, it means that a portal is near."

"You mean like the demon compass?" Kuwabara asked.

"Precisely."

Nodding, the group took the ring and left, Koenma mumbling about lax service as they did.

* * *

After the third time she caught up to Hiei and he shot off again, Saika realized she was being teased.

If that wasn't enough of a clue, he was smirking and chuckling the whole time, in between disapproving clucks of the tongue.

Catching her breath, Saika set her back against a tree while the man she chased into the trees again.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Tower card, studying again the enigmatic visage.

Instead of pursuing Hiei, Saika walked down a well-worn trail past some large rocks, a skinny stream, a tree whose overturned root she tripped over, two large mushrooms, and terrifyingly enough, several skeletons set against trees.

Upon seeing them, she thought it best to make like a tree, and ran quickly to another well-worn trail ahead.

Thinking she would soon reach some kind of civilization, Saika walked on and found two large rocks, a skinny stream, a tree whose overturned root she also tripped over, two large mushrooms, and another set of skeletons laid against trees.

After the third time she saw all of the markers, she realized she was walking circles.

So once she reached the large rocks on her fourth time around, she went deliberately left of the path and waded through thick shrub for a while before emerging to a cleared path marked by two stones.

Thinking herself insane, she tried the same thing again, only to reconvene with the second large rock.

An incalculable about of time later, Saika was positive that there was no way to escape the forest trail as she walked. The entrance she came through even seemed to disappear, and every time she walked the endless path, it seemed to grow shorter.

Ignoring the feeling that the universe was closing in on her, Saika tried to think of a plan.

Analyzing the skeletons, she saw that they wore the same clothing, marked by red cloth with a gray circle.

A demon band probably walked on the same trail as her a long time ago, and met a fate she wasn't eager to enjoy.

Looking hopelessly to the trees above her, Saika saw something that caught her eye: a torn shred of red cloth, higher on the branches than she thought it possible to climb.

Yes; when she looked closely around and below that area, and there were many shreds of cloth that appeared to have been ripped apart. They fell distinctively around the two giant mushrooms. One, she noted, was red with yellow spots, while the other was yellow with red spots.

Logically, Saika climbed to the top of the mushroom, but as it wasn't very bouncy, she slid off quickly. She had the feeling that if only she could get up higher, she could escape the deathly trail she walked.

Analyzing the mushrooms, she saw that some crusty holes marked the rim, as though something had been torn off a long time ago. Furthermore, the inside of the mushroom looked less like fungi and more like bread.

Slowly, she tore a piece off of the red mushroom and was shocked that it smelt something like the inside of a bakery.

Saika realized that the mushrooms could be deadly poison, and the poor fools who last tasted from them had rolled and writhed in pain before falling dead a few feet over, only to have their clothes torn by hungry crows.

Somehow, the palatable smell of the mushroom defeated her logic.

Gingerly taking a bite, Saika immediately felt a rush of sickness flood through her. The world seemed to vacillate as on a sea-set ship.

Then, her neck began to extend. Her limbs and joints followed in a noodle-y mess. Her torso and muscles caught up with her limbs and they reacquainted themselves in their previous proportions, although _slightly_ larger.

By then she was a good twelve feet tall, and if she reached up she might pull back the branches of the trees.

But the first thing Saika noticed after growing was that her clothes had caught on a tree and nearly ripped off from her grown body.

* * *

The Sato household had a penchant for typical mornings.

Kaya, as the woman of the house, always woke up before sunrise to make breakfast for the family. Most days, Saika would as well, opting to practice piano while Yatsu, her stepfather, and Yuri, her stepsister, woke up to their tedious routines.

Once breakfast was served, Kaya thought it strange that her birth daughter had not yet come down.

Climbing the stairs, calling out her daughter's name, she entered the room to wake her, only to see a note upon the rumpled bed and nothing else.

"Ya- _Yatsu_!"

* * *

Hiei was thoroughly enjoying the act of infringing upon Saika's privacy.

He fully intended to defeat her telekinetically. However, until then, he felt like he was glimpsing his victory while reading her journal. As a part of his mission, _obviously_.

And though he wouldn't admit it, he grew more and more interested in the words that he could interpret. Some were beyond his ability ("Useless human script. . ."), while others seemed completely manufactured. The truth was that he had already solved the mystery the team was assigned to, but he continued reading the journal.

That fact occurred to him, but he ignored it. He had nothing better to do, he convinced himself.

Yet it wouldn't leave his mind, and he scrutinized himself, nearly tortured himself, the same way he would to strengthen himself while training. _What use do you have for the thoughts of this human? What do you care?_

With ten pages to go, he slammed the book shut. His interest in the human was apparent, and he hated the girl for it.

There was nothing particularly valuable about her (that he would admit), except that she could repel him with her mind.

And that was it. He _was_ repelled. His disgust and distaste built (as he himself built it), and he cemented the promise that he _would _outdo her, and he would do nor care to do anything else.

Leaping from his tree branch to another in conviction, Hiei paused for a moment.

Vexed, he stood a while, then told himself he'd read. . . only one more entry.

* * *

Somewhere in the city of Tokyo, Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara ran through the streets and over roof tops, as though they had any idea where they were going.

Suddenly, while complaining and catching their breaths atop a building, the band on Yusuke's finger (that did not go un-taunted as man jewelry) began to glow a soft garnet. On a hunch, he put his hand to the cement surface he stood on, and it glowed brighter.

The three boys dashed into the steel door by a fan that roared with the force of people inside preparing for a warm spring night.

They ran through the codified building, many with doors open to let in any semblance of cool breeze. Yusuke's tracking ring was a bright marischino red when he reached a inconveniently closed door.

Yusuke immediately pounded on the door, and after him, Kurama knocked softly and politely.

A woman's voice from within called, "Coming!", to which Yusuke kicked in the door.

"Was that really necessary?" Kurama asked with mild annoyance.

The woman, who was wearing oven mitts and carrying a pot, came into the hallway and dropped the pot with a gasp.

"Sorry, lady!" Yusuke called as he leapt over the spilt food, followed by Kurama, who nonchalantly added, "So sorry."

"Hey, is that shabu shabu?" Kuwabara momentarily hovered over her ruined dinner, before running into the woman's home with the others. She only stared on in shock, before fumbling into the kitchen to get a phone with which to call the police.

Yusuke's ring became a miniature red sun when he, Kurama, and Kuwabara reached the small hall bathroom. They burst in the door, and Yusuke found that the ring buzzed when held above the porcelain seat in the bathroom's corner.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Yusuke dropped his hand to his side.

"Urgh, Koenma did this on purpose!" Kuwabara shouted in frustration.

"Not it," Kurama spoke quickly, and the other two just stared at him. He became sheepish and put his hand behind his head. "Maybe I wasn't the most social child, but there were some things I learned from humans about games."

"Not it," Yusuke looked at Kuwabara.

"Oh, no way!"

"You first, Kuwabara. Show us how it's done."

"Indeed."

"Seriously, guys?"

"I suggest you get it over with before the portal closes," Kurama advised.

"Aw man, it's always me."

And with that, Kuwabara dived into the toilet, materializing instantly. Yusuke and Kurama followed.

* * *

Saika grew, but her clothing did not.

Her shoes broke completely off of her feet. Her hanging top become a tight slip that threatened to break at her bust. Her jeans, on the other hand, tore away towards the hips, leaving only shreds of pant legs, and the tightened elastic of her underwear.

Truly, growing had been a painful experience. All other objectives were to be put behind the need for clothing.

She reached down into the scrap of pants she wore, and, after much deliberation, pulled the tarot card out, nearly confetti-sized as it sat in the palm of her hand. Was that what it meant 'tower'?

"Quite a predicament you're in," an unfamiliar voice purred.

"Who's there?" Saika called, reasonably more on edge than usual.

"No one who's going to eat you, if that's what you're thinking."

Instead of a monster, a surprisingly sleek-maned black cat seemingly materialized onto a high branch of a tree. It was significantly larger than the sort of felines Saika was used to seeing, but by no stretch of the imagination was it a beast, excepting a pair of luminous yellow eyes and a subtle smile on its huge mouth.

"Now, what's a mortal human doing in this neck of the woods?" Fixed on its huge eyes, Saika stared gaping for a moment before it spoke again, "But then, there's no need to answer that. I've been watching you for a while, and I can tell that you're not exactly-" its mouth stretched into a frighteningly broad grin- "_a normal human_."

Yes, that cat had been watching Saika, and each movement she made, each revelation she had, was a pleasure to watch.

Most humans would flail and scream before passing out, but she walked the Eternal Path quickly and with purpose. Furthermore, there was energy resonating from her, and she hadn't recoiled at the sound of his voice. He desired to explore the young anomaly.

"You can _speak_," Saika blankly stated, and against all odds, she formed a distant sort of smile.

This took the cat for a turn.

"What are you smiling about?" His own smile flipped over, as he felt left out of the joke. She was supposed to be terrified.

"What am I doing?" she asked, laughing lightly. "I'm half naked in another dimension chasing a book. I've sung to flowers, picnicked with monsters, and now I'm talking to a cat. It's like some terrible dream come true."

"Be careful what you wish for." His cheeky grin returned. "Wishing is a dangerous business."

"This is all so impossible." Saika crouched onto her knees to keep the breeze from blowing uncomfortably over her legs.

"Impossible? You're only human. What do you know about the impossible?" The cat leapt from the branch and sat itself on the mushroom that Saika was crouched by.

"You humans have been throwing around that word, _impossible_, for centuries. And you're afraid here, aren't you? _I'd_ be afraid of a world where you humans can decide what's all possible. They used to say they couldn't fathom lightning, but now they keep it in jars. Demons have never had that problem, but imagine a world where humans were simply _right_. In that sort of world, any point to imagining would waste away. I wouldn't exist. By carriage, you wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Saika stared in awe at the cat before slowly saying, "What is your name?"

"What's in a name?" Saika stared at him curiously, and he added, "By name, do you mean what others call me? Or what my begetters named me?"

After a pause, Saika asked, "What do you call yourself?"

To her surprise, he laughed. Before she could think about how odd it was to hear a cat laugh, he said, "A number of things, being me, myself, and I. Because I don't often forget who I am."

"What can I call you?"

"Call me what you like," the cat chuckled, before vanishing from its tail up.

"Wait! Don't go," Saika asked, glad to have some remotely polite solace in the horror-land. "Which- which way should I go from here?"

"That depends on where you want to get to," the cat spoke just as its jagged shoulder bones disappeared.

"Well. . . I don't know."

"Then it doesn't really matter which way you go, does it?"

Thinking about this for too long, Saika watched the cat completely disappear, only leaving the ghost of its grin behind.

"I want to find some clothes!" she finally decided.

Two bright yellow orbs appeared above the moony grin, and Saika fell on her backside in shock of the face without a head.

"Then you'll want to head north," though he didn't explain why.

"Will I see you again?"

"Oh!" And the closing eyes blinked open again, ignoring her question. "There's something I forgot to say."

"What is it?"

"It was very important."

"What is it?"

"I don't know." The cat laughed a bit hysterically. "I forgot!"

And with that, the cat faded away completely, leaving Saika alone with her shock.

After a while, she stood up and pulled the trees tops away from the skyline with her enlarged hands, only to realize that she had no idea in which direction North was.

* * *

"If you spend all day staring at yourself, you'll just get older. And uglier."

Everyone had always said she was the image of a snow maiden. Except for her sister.

"You're just jealous," she spat, but she set down the mirror anyway. "And it's not just to see myself."

"Well, the mirror won't work if you just stare at it. We should go out and find more sacrifices." Her sister unsheathed her sword enthusiastically.

"What's the point?" she looked to the roof of the cave apathetically. "These low class demons barely have any energy."

A deafening roar rang from the corner of the cave, followed by the sound of strained chains.

"What's the matter, baby?" she cooed to the monster.

"He smells something _good_," her sister purred in delight.


	12. Bulrush

**_. . . means docility._**

* * *

_"I'm afraid I can't explain myself, because you see, I'm not myself, you know."_

* * *

"I'm sorry, Lord Koenma," the young, blackette grim reaper scowled morosely, staring down at the desk.

"Again?" Koenma scoffed in disbelief, eyes bulging. "How did it happen?"

"It was the exact same as last time. The room was completely sealed off, with curse seals no less, and I came back from patrol to find him dead."

"Another one. . . Botan hasn't come back yet, has she?"

"No sir."

"This is not good. . . Here I thought the culprit might be Saika, but now she's in the Demon Realm, so it couldn't be her. . . It's coming to the point where there's no more suspects." Shaking his head in frustration, Koenma shuffled the papers on his desk. There were only a few files of human psychics labeled _Living_. "And now Yusuke's gone to the Demon Realm, too. . ."

"What should we do, Lord Koenma?"

"Here, take this: find this man and protect him. Don't leave his side for a second. Even if he does die, I want you to tell me what happens. We'll figure this out."

* * *

Botan was a cheery girl. She always wore a ponytail and a smile. It was necessary to retain her sanity, considering she dealt daily with the dead.

Not all of them took it as well as Yusuke, mind you.

"No, no, you don't understand," the tanned spirit of a past self writhed on the ground in agony and frustration his body had just endured.

"Please, Kibana, we have to return to Lord Koenma to tell him what happened! Come on, now, there you go," she encouraged him as he sat up. "Now you know as well as I do that your Spirit isn't affected by the physical feelings you had in your death."

"That's just the thing. . ." he grunted before continuing. "I've never had this feeling before. At least when I'm in pain I can focus on my Spirit Energy, but now, it's like it's all been taken from me."

"I don't remember what happened, though. . ." Kibana put a hand to his head and screwed up his face in pain.

"It's all right, then." Botan sighed before continuing. "I just need you to show the strength you had when you fought Yusuke. There you go, that's better," she took him under the shoulder and together pushed off of the ground. Normally, Kibana's spirit should have been hovering, but he was apparently drained for energy.

As Botan got on her oar with Kibana in tow, she asked a resounding silence, "Oh Yusuke, where are you?"

* * *

Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara plummeted rock ground of a cliff on a mountain. It overlooked a long expanse of forest, meeting a river on the horizon. It was the Demon Realm.

"Do you sense anything, Kuwabara?" Yusuke asked, but Kuwabara shook his head.

"Well, we'd better get searching." Yusuke and the others bent their knees to jump when a freakishly frog-like blue butterfly suddenly came flying from the ground below.

"I smell _human!_" It shrieked as though calling "olly, olly, oxen free". However, on the sight of them, its expression changed to dejected as it hovered above the ledge. "Wait, you're not the girl."

"A _human_ girl, you say?" Kurama asked with a growing smirk.

* * *

Hiei read the final page of Saika's journal with the answer to both her questions and the Spirit World's.

Of course, he had a few things to ask the human girl, though they mostly had to do with the _whys _of what she had done.

The last page, however, didn't have those answers. It was more of a summary, a justification of why Saika was and how she put off reality. Hiei found it simultaneously intriguing and disgusting.

* * *

_When I was a kid, I sometimes tried to tell people about my powers. That all stopped at one slumber party in my third year of primary school._

We were playing truth or dare, and I just told them. It was my "deepest, darkest secret", though they wouldn't believe me. Not until I blew up the cake, that was.

_I stopped trying to tell anyone about my powers a long time ago. I don't understand them. They don't seem very practical for crime-fighting, like magical girl mangas make that kind of stuff seem. _

_I can't let anyone know now. I have to pretend to be as average as I should be. _

_What would my mother think of it? She would be afraid. _I'm_ afraid._

_It's already my fault they got a divorce. I don't want another guilt trip, so I've taken on the facade of a perfect, docile little daughter._

_This distancing (and plain face and demeanor) keep me from having friends. Or any social interaction, really. I find myself caught between reaching out to have a friend and pushing people away, for the better. I'm always having these battles in my mind._

_I can't pretend like I'm not lonely. I'm really lonely. Lonelier than I'd like to describe. But at the very least I can live a life that is useful to others and be pseudo-normal in the process._

_To make matters worse, I always gave myself these dreams. The greatest perk of my powers is the ability to control my dreams entirely, and for the longest while, I always indulged this ability. I would create little worlds in my mind that I could escape to and be happy in. As soon as I finished my chores and my schoolwork, I would go to sleep, not because I was tired, but so I could go there._

_The dream was always different, however bizarre I wanted it to be: sometimes it was a gorgeous garden with super-sized versions of my favorite flowers, the kind I wanted to have; sometimes it was a cloudy other-world with fishes swimming in the air and sweet-tasting sunlight; sometimes it was just my family back together again._

_This may seem like a good thing, and partly it was, but it made me want more. I wanted to make my dreams more real, or to pursue that kind of beauty in my real life. At least, maybe, to share them with someone._

_I knew I couldn't, though. My mom is happy with Yatsu. He's a lawyer, so there won't be any monetary spats like last time, and his daughter Yuri is the beautiful girl Mom's always wanted to have. I'm happy that she's happy._

_For a while, I thought I'd live my whole life like that. Playing piano in my spare time, taking care of my mother into her old age, maybe reopening the flower shop she and Dad used to have. That was kind of my dream, my non-figurative one._

_I would never get married, which would probably disappoint her, but Yuri definitely would, and probably bring in a classy guy, too. Things would turn out okay, and I would learn to live only on dreams._

_I was so caught up in my dreams, I didn't think my real life could change._

_So my dreams, my favorite, most personal treasures, started changing. It started on the day that Yusuke Urameshi died._

_I never knew Yusuke. To be honest, I was really afraid of him. He was too crude and violent to be natural. (But then, who am I to call someone unnatural?)_

_Yusuke got hit by a car. I went to the memorial service at his apartment like everyone else in our class. I noticed a lot of people were happy that he was gone, and though I feel bad thinking so, I wasn't going to miss him much._

_But then Keiko, his girlfriend (I think?) was crying a lot. His mother was in tears. That really tugged on my heart strings, and kind of changed my mind about him. Even that delinquent Kazuma Kuwabara was there, and he seemed in denial about the whole thing._

_But the funeral wasn't what was important. It was the dream I had that night. _

_I kept getting foggy visions of Yusuke, a girl on a flying oar, and a little baby, though that sounds strange. I could barely make anything out but feelings and intentions._

_"Save the body, save the body, find Keiko, find Keiko, hatch the egg, hatch the egg. . . " I couldn't tell what it meant._

_That was strange enough, but then things started getting scarier. There were demons and ghosts, people getting killed, evil bugs, soul-eating monsters. It was in a different place, away from Yusuke, but I got visions of scary little boys and ice kingdoms, like a story unfolding. _

_My powers only made me more sensitive to all of it, and my dreams were consuming me, but this time in a bad way._

_After a while, I decided to start this journal. I kept track of the dreams, giving them names. I thought, if I would ever write the story of a manga, this would make a pretty good one. (Too bad I'm not creative.) Honestly it's felt great to record my feelings along with these nightmares; they've made things so much easier._

_And I thought that my imagination and powers were conspiring against me for a while, but then Yusuke Urameshi came to school again. Back from the dead._

_Maybe everyone took this news fairly well, but I didn't. As I've previously written, I dreamt of him coming back the night before he did. Maybe I didn't express my full feelings there, but I'll do it now._

_At first, I was sure that it was a dream, seeing him there. Then I realized that maybe I was seeing visions of things that were actually going on, but that was insane. _

_Then again, so was Urameshi coming back to life._

_The dreams didn't stop there at all, though. Urameshi fought the demons I dreamt of, and more. He and others I'd never heard of went fighting in galactic battles._

_Then I started to think about what that would mean. All of the demons, everything, must have been real. Yusuke's revival proved it._

_I ignored that, though, and I tried to live as easily as I could. Sure, sometimes, if I was under stress, my powers would get the better of me and blow something up again, but I dealt with it. Played it off. _

_I even offered to take care of Kuwabara's kitten. That was probably stupid of me. I can't even be in denial correctly, reaching out and touching the things I'm trying to run from. What was I thinking? I guess I wanted to help. Stop being a minor character for once. I couldn't help it._

_Now that it's the last page, I can't help but feeling like this chapter of my life is over. I'm not a prophet or anything, not really, but I think I understand that my powers and my demons aren't going to leave me alone._

_That fantasy of a normal life I had is impossible. I'm left with these nightmares and this journal. God forbid anyone ever find it._

_But I still can't help hoping for it, even if I feel like I've got Yusuke's fate ahead of me. Not much of a magical girl, am I?_

_

* * *

_

Closing the book, Hiei understood the situation. It was apparent that Saika had realized her powers a while ago, though she dealt with them in a painfully human manner.

He understood her thought process more, considering that that last entry was more personal than any of the others (which had been full of useless opinions, visions, and experiences), but then it occurred to him, as he sat perched in the tree, that Saika was aware of the change about to occur in her life. Even if she didn't consciously know it, she had quite fittingly concluded that "chapter of her life".

And that note in the end, about someone finding it. How much did she know?

The girl had all the makings of a psychic, and all the pathetic weakness of a human.

No. . . Hiei thought, after sliding the book in the fold of his coat, that he would not go running to the Spirit Detective just yet. A devious smile bent his lips and dented his brow as he decided that he would test the strength of the girl against her weakness, let her run around the Makai for a bit longer. If she was as powerful as she feared herself to be, she would certainly have to face it sometime.

He would just be there to see it, and be ready to overpower her psychic abilities at their highest, if he planned on doing so. And he would, under no circumstances, be beat by a human.

* * *

Yatsu skipped work that morning, and he slid back into his car that was parked outside of the cafe with a sigh.

"They said they saw her around 3:00 AM, but she left in a taxi in a hurry. She was searching on the computer for a while before she left, but the history was deleted."

"She never does anything like this, Yatsu, you know she doesn't. You know she-" Kaya let her husband shush her.

"I think all we can do now is go home and wait. I'll search around town, but you need to be there if she comes back."

The police told the two that if their daughter was not gone for 24 hours, Saika was not considered missing, and therefore they would not search for her.

"I don't understand it. She's never done anything like this, she's never even stayed late at school. Why would she do this? We even have a coffee machine at home, so. . ."

And Yatsu let his wife babble worriedly until they got back home to Yuri, who was waiting with a tray of tea and an elderly pink-haired guest.

* * *

Hai sat up, coughing up blood. His long brown ears flopped over his shoulders as he sat up to see Hata, who was waiting for him.

"They're all-" Hai began, but Hata just nodded.

"That fire demon. . . He must have been some kind of monster to take them all out that quickly," Hai concluded. To his surprise, Hata made a disapproving cluck of the tongue.

"These weaklings, they were nothing. _You_ could have taken them out that quickly." Hata began to shuffle his deck again, his gigantic nose and extravagant headdress somehow not looking so silly.

"I- don't understand." Hai began. "First you're acting like an idiot, than you're chuckling like your whole clan was nothing! What are you playing at, because if you don't tell me soon, I'm out of here!"

"Hai, Hai, Hai. . . calm down. It'll all make sense shortly." Before Hai could engage his master again, a wicked screech rang through the woods. It was followed by at least three more, all bone-stiffeningly terrifying.

"Look who's here, the charun."

Surely enough, five gigantic clawed birds shot overhead in line, shaking the tree branches as they passed. Quickly, as the third one went, Hata picked up a rock, and with force Hai didn't think he was capable of, threw it and pierced the fifth and smallest charun. It plummeted to the ground in the woods a ways away, knocking down several trees.

On reflex, the four other charuns ricocheted back and dove through the branches at Hata from different angles. With speed Hai could barely see, Hata took a katana from the sheath of a dead comrade and tore the vital points of each charun as they came at him. With startling power, the charun flew in the directions they were thrown, knocking down trees as they went.

Needless to say, Hai was taken aback. He stared in shock at Hata, who stood tall and looked more intimidating than ever.

"Oh!" Hata then shouted and pulled out his notebook, writing something down. "Doesn't this sound like a good idea for a story? A band of beasts live and die together because of their stupid bonds! Yes, the irony is just delicious, isn't it? Take a look at these birds!" Hata smiled maliciously. "Remind you of those _humans_, don't they? Running around in packs just because they can."

Hata began to walk away, and out of fear, Hai followed him in suit.

"Come now, Hai. We owe the Queens a visit," Hata said before leaving behind the corpses of his comrades with his enemies. "If you're worried that I'll kill you, don't be; you'll have your uses yet."

* * *

Taking handfuls of mushroom and the tarot card for later (also, the remains of her clothes), Saika fled the forest and came into a damp clearing by a river.

She found traveling much more convenient on five-foot legs.

Saika came upon to another band of demons by the river. Instead of humanoid animals drinking blood, though, they were grey-skinned giants with strangely-set eyes. Those eyes, in disturbingly brilliant shades, were set at perplexing angles around the giants' heads, varied in number, and refrained from blinking in unison.

Somehow, from watching them go about their business without noticing her, Saika thought they appeared all to be female, based on the adornments of their hair and their skirts.

"Hey, look at that!" One of the giants turned and spoke, causing many others to turn and look at Saika.

The following events confused Saika thoroughly.

Instead of threatening to kill Saika, or treating her like food, the giant women called Saika over and introduced themselves before asking to know who she was. One, she thought, even complimented her complexion, before they invited her to eat. Without asking questions, Saika played along, expecting to see their monstrous sides at any moment.

Seeing the entree of disgusting (but well-meaning) roasted kemushi they placed before her, Saika realized how much of a difference size made in the Demon World.

"So, where are you from, stranger?" asked a giant called Buta, who had rather ridiculous pig-tails and one great eye where a nose might have been, the leader.

"Hm?" Saika took a few moments to think, and she knew that the red in her cheeks would be more apparent with their enlargement. She had not thought of an alibi, considering must demons could tell she was human.

Thankfully, the giant woman laughed genially and said, "I understand! When you come out here, it's because you don't want to remember where you came from. You're at welcome here, friend."

"Really?" Saika asked stupidly.

"Of course! We Amazons have to take care of each other! Now, eat! You must be hungry! We didn't even see you approaching."

Instead of speaking, which Saika knew would bury her deeper in lies and misunderstanding, Saika prodded at the food, and nearly took a bite, but she remembered Persephone. The daughter of the Greek goddess of the harvest, Persephone was stolen from the living world and taken by Hades to the underworld, where she could have escaped, had she not eaten the fruits of the dead. Because of that, she was eternally bound to death.

No, Saika decided that she wasn't hungry, after all.

"So, what's your name, stranger?" another friendly giant with two diagonally turned eyes and another eye on her cheek asked.

Saying the first thing that came to mind, Saika answered, "Persephone!"

"Huh, weird name!" a smaller giant with an annoying voice speculated.

Saika ignored that, and instead gathered her nerve. The breeze on her legs was disconcerting, and she couldn't imagine what kind of bugs the Demon Realm had. Scratching beneath her knee in fear, she finally collected the courage to ask, "If it's not too much to ask, could I have some clothes? These kind of got- er- torn on my way over here."

"Of course! Hey, Ushi, Meushi, get Persephone some clothes!" Two giants shuffled under some tents that bumped against them as they crawled around. They returned quickly with a long purple robe, black shorts, and sandals. Saika set down her handful of mushroom, clothing and tarot to get dressed.

"Hey, what's all this, Persephone?" the giant with the high-pitched voice asked.

Fumbling for the best story, Saika said, "I- uh- got it from this girl on the way over here. Ate her," she added hastily.

Thankfully, (and yet scarily) they all looked nonplussed.

Instead, Buta concluded, "So that's why you're not hungry!"

Saika tried to not breathe a sigh of relief at the same time that she tried not to shudder.

The smaller giant asked for Saika's kemushi, which she gave happily, and Saika couldn't help but hear the word "phoney" echo from her alias Persephone. Even with the hospitality of the Amazons, Saika couldn't help but fear how they would have treated her if she hadn't been one of them. The stupidity of her actions was not lost on her, but it was better than sitting in a forest to whose inhabitants she was tendermeat.

On both sides of the situation, Saika feared of how long she would remain an Amazon; she didn't want to be a giant forever, but she certainly didn't want only her scraps of clothing to be left of her.

* * *

A misty, pale blue light illuminated the wide entrance to the cave, small in comparison to the wider cave. The low entrance spread to a huge dome, and the sound of water, slowly falling in drops, rang through the darkness eerily.

The shadows were decked in layers, darkest on the far end where tunnels burrowed down and out to places unseen.

The heavy breath of a gigantic monster shook the cave itself, but she had no reason to fear it.

"Good boy! That's a good boy!" the woman cooed lovingly as she flung dead, bleeding bodies to the chained beast. It roared as though to say, "Yes, yes! I am a good boy!"

She wore a maroon tunic with a high collar, chains wrapped around her arms and legs, and her hair in shoulder-length black bob.

"Your- your majesty. . ." a small, bat-like demon hovered behind her, rather afraid of her kindly change in mood.

"What is it, now?" she asked without turning.

"We have guests. . ."

"Is that so? For Woki?" she asked flightily as she threw another body to her pet.

"Er-" the bat began, but dove into the dark corner of the cave when the woman turned around to see.

"Come now, Aki, is that any way to greet an old friend?" Hata came as a shadow into the entrance of the cave and growled in confident pleasure. Hai followed, looking to the dark corners of the cave as though something would attack.

"What are you doing here?" she sneered, and turned around disinterestedly.

"I have a gift, and a message."

"Now, what could you have that would possibly be of use to me? You know you're not welcome here. Don't you think it's rather _dangerous_-" she threw a corpse to the monster, who let out a roar of delight. "-to test my patience?"

Malice, like poison, dripped from her voice.

Hata saw it in his best interests to get to the point. "I know that you've been hunting down psychics for energy."

"So what if I am? It's none of your concern, unless you've got a death wish."

"It so happens that I just met a particularly powerful human psychic in the Hungry Gallows."

The woman called Aki stopped her arm mid-throw.

"A human psychic?"

"Indeed."

"And. . . just how powerful was she?"

"I think she's the one you've been looking for," Hata smiled cruelly.

Aki remained facing her monster, who was concealed by the shadows, but she dropped the scrap of body she was about to throw. For a moment, there was a thoughtful silence.

"Oh, how rude of me! Hai, meet the Blood Red Queen."

Hai, who had been eyeing the cave warily, but in a state of begrudging comfort, started upon hearing that.

"Th-_the _Blood Red Queen?" Hai took a pose as though to prepare for battle, but he halted the shudder that was running through him when Hata chuckled.

"You've gathered a bit of fame, haven't you, Aki? You're so much more than a little gypsy girl, now. . ."

Upon hearing him, Aki's tone rang with distaste and offense. "Still running around with low class demons, I see," she spat.

"Eh, they have their uses," Hata shrugged most casually.

After a moment the Red Queen asked, "Well, what about that gift?"

"He's right here," Hata spoke as he stepped aside to give a full view of Hai, who looked doubly shocked.

As Hai shouted his protests and drew his sword, Aki shrugged casually and said, "All right. Woki, sick him!"

Just as Hai was halfway through the word "wait", a tentacle-like scaled arm with a toothed mouth on its end shot out and closed its jaws around Hai's neck.

It jerked him forward like a limp rag doll, and only a squelching attempted scream was heard before a deathly crunch and squish fell over the hollow silence of the cave.

Hata only flinched in his smug smile slightly, but thankfully, Aki didn't notice.

The beast chewed only several times before letting out a satisfied sigh. A blob of blood and crushed bone plopped to the ground in the light, presumably from the monster's mouth, glistening with saliva.

"He was a tough one, wasn't he, Woki?" the Red Queen cooed in baby talk. "I know how you love your tough meat!" She turned with a smile on her face, though that was rarely a good sign. "Okay, you've got my attention, Hata."

"Good. You have the Crystal Looking-Glass?"

"I have the Looking-Glass if you have a psychic."

"And what exactly do you plan to do with the Looking-Glass? You know it hasn't been used in centuries. It requires a huge sacrifice."

"I know all this, Hata, better than you do. And don't worry your pretty little hat; you'll see. First things first, now: tell me about this psychic."

* * *

_Oh, poppet, the temptation was great to pull a thousand half-naked gags with Saika. I resisted. My, my! And we're approaching 50 reviews, aren't we? How about this: whoever touches that mark will get a prize! Haha, I don't normally do that kind of stuff, but like I said, I'm trying to change as a writer. So whoever gives the 50th review gets a commission one-shot of their choice, a read/review of a story they want, etc., etc. I'm not a good prize giver. You pick! Be greedy. ;)_

_And it sucks, now, because I've got a whole playlist I've compiled for this story and nothing to do with it! I might include some lyrics at some point. . . once I run out of book quotes that make sense. D; Anyway, if anybody has a good YYH fic or knows of one, please let me know. I've been at a loss lately, nothing to read fan fiction-wise. I finished The Goblet of Fire on the bright side, but I need my fic fix. Also, do you prefer a longer chapter like this, an even longer chapter, or shorter but quicker chapters?_

_In the mean time, review, and stay beautiful, doll~ :)_


	13. Fennel

_**. . . means strength.**_

* * *

_"I warn you dear child, if I lose my temper, you lose your head. Understand?"_

* * *

Like all bugs, kemushi can be squished.

"Now, are you sure you don't want to tell us where you saw the human girl?" Yusuke asked as he pressed down on the lying kemushi with his foot.

With a squelching cough, it finally admitted that it was planning to eat the human it had seen before it molted, and the boys were ready to head off after her.

Just as they again bent their knees in unison to leap off of the ledge, the Spirit World gear-watch around Yusuke's wrist exploded with noise.

Agitatedly, he tapped the watch's center and it popped up, showing Botan's face through a blur of static.

"Yus-ke-"

The other boys immediately demanded to see and strained to listen.

"I don't know. I can't hear her!" Yusuke shook his wrist and held it at different angles, as though that would help. "I don't exactly get good reception in the Demon Realm."

She continued to sputter hopelessly into a device that couldn't interpret her, and in the back of the image the head of a man appeared. He was as blurred as Botan.

"Listen t-Yusuke-help to-"

"What is it?" Kuwabara persisted, and before Yusuke could answer, a figure appeared in the sky, above the trees.

It fell down, a body; the boys shot after it as it flailed to the forest floor.

* * *

The thought passed quickly through his mind: Hiei knew that the Spirit Detective and the others had arrived in the Demon Realm.

No; he wouldn't go running off to them right away. He'd find Saika, and see if she had realized her potential or been eaten.

And as the cat flicked his tail playfully, watching Hiei from a tree branch above, he too wondered where that girl was and what business Hiei of the Jagan had with her. The distinctive scent of the human was strong on those bound papers, and the cat's curiosity doubled.

* * *

Here's the thing about false senses of security: they're always broken at the peak of ignorant bliss.

And there Saika was, learning about the traditions of Amazons and feeling much safer than she had all morning, when a beautiful, porcelain-skinned woman in a long white gown appeared and ruined everything.

She came as though in carried by the wind, white-haired and misty-eyed. As soon as she showed up, the giant women froze in their places, and the air became menacing.

After a few deathly minutes of silence, Buta stood and asked, "What is it?" The white-haired woman only popped her eyebrows, but Buta stutteringly added, "-your majesty."

"Now, I've come all this way to grace you with my presence, and this is the reception I get?" She began to stroll from under the hood of forest that she appeared in. "What if I need another sacrifice? What then? What will you do?"

A few of the larger Amazons stood, and one said, "You don't need us anymore!"

"Leave us alone, unless you want to fight!"

"Oh, is that how it is! You'll all try and fight me? That's not how I remember it. The last time I visited, you were happy to give me all of the stragglers as long as I left you alone. Grown spines, have we?"

All of the giants bristled, and Saika could tell that it was not in their nature to take such abuse, though they did.

"No, you're all too weak to provide a sacrifice, but then, too _weak _to stop me from sacrificing you. So I thought I'd stop by for a little game!" With her words, the woman seemed to spit poison and breathe fire, despite her beauty.

Saika couldn't believe the evil behind that woman's eyes; not even a movie villain could be so pointlessly cruel.

The action came too quickly, then. Three giants, including Buta, leapt from the camp towards the woman. She withdrew something like a hand mirror from behind her back, then quickly jumped into the air, where she appeared to disappear.

Suddenly, the giant beside Buta was on the ground, gagging with the woman crouched on her neck. But the weight of the woman didn't seem to choke her; instead, the hand mirror held above the giant's face seemed to literally take her breath away, pulling a blue fog from the giant's throat. Her wide, wet eyes, set on other side of her head, rolled around in agony.

"Weak, weak, they're all too _weak_!" the woman sang sweetly, lolling her head and smiling, as the giants around her cried out in protest.

Saika sat folded, unsure of what to do. But the giant beside Buta took a wild swing with her club at the woman, who looked to again disappear.

She reappeared on the attacking giant's shoulder, and that giant barely had a moment to look surprised before the woman turned the mirror to face the giant's ear and it shot out a blue beam of light that tore the giant's head clear off.

Shrieks ran through the Amazon camp, and again, more giants charged at the woman.

That woman barely had a moment to smirk at her kill before she flung them inexplicably against a tree by the clearing's edge, with such force that it rocked out of place.

Silence stunned them all still. No one in the camp was expecting that, and they all turned around to see who had done it. There wasn't much time for inquiries, though, because as soon as the mysterious woman regained herself, her fair face contorted with fury.

At this, all of the giants recoiled, some even fleeing into the forest. Saika stood and stared in fearful hatred at the woman, who sighed with a small, convoluted smile. Even at a distance, Saika could see her lips trembling.

As a testament to her confidence, the woman shook her white waves of hair, and they remained intact; however, her wholly confident exterior did not.

"I think someone needs to explain to me what just happened, _Buta_, before I go ape shit and tear you all to pieces," she spoke with malicious endearment dripping from her voice.

But Buta stared blankly as the tree behind the woman, which had been leaning in the other direction, slowly moved in the glaring woman's direction.

And then, with greater force than the pull of gravity, the tree slammed down to where the woman stood, unaware. With speed unseen, she evaded it, and stood looking into the forest behind her for whoever was attacking.

Buta, with her jaw slightly ajar, turned to looked at her cohorts. She met Saika's eyes only for a moment, and silently, something registered in her wide blinking eye.

Before Saika or anyone else could tell her not to, Buta charged at the woman. She turned around time to use the force of the mirror to blow a chunk out of Buta's shoulder. Blood splattered over the clearing, and there seemed to be a collective cry of pain.

Saika, however, had lost control: before her mind could catch up, she was running quickly toward the woman. Why she was coming to the defense of someone who would gladly eat her, she did not know.

Saika grabbed handfuls of the woman's hair and tried futilely to pull her away from Buta, awkwardly, while hindered by her height.

It was about as effective as trying to knock down a statue. The statue then caught a lock of Saika's own hair and easily threw her to the ground with it. Saika, face down, felt the woman's sharp heel in her ribs, and tried to roll away, but the woman still held Saika by her hair.

"You're not as strong as the other giants," the woman casually speculated. "You're not as quite ugly, either. Why is that? Born a freak? Are you a foreigner?"

Saika turned only well enough to glare at the woman, who shrugged and turned the mirror on her.

"Doesn't matter. Die like the weak swine you are!"

Saika was immediately washed over with a cold, strangely immobilizing breeze. The wind seemed to breath into her, and her vision became clouded by it. It was like her lungs were being sucked dry, like her blood itself was freezing, and there was nothing she could do to help it.

Gasping feebly, Saika wished more like anything for it to be over; she had never known any such pain or fear before.

Suddenly, after a brief eternity, the painful pull was knocked away and the world returned. Saika's lungs immediately filled with warm air, and aside from much feeling heavier and spiritually exhausted than before, she was more or less alive.

It took her a few moments to notice that a cloaked man stood in front of her, facing the white woman.

* * *

"Getsuno?" Yusuke shouted as they reached the spot of forest where he, Kurama, and Kuwabara had seen him fall.

The man, with his beard as shaggy as his torn clothing, was indeed Getsuno. He pretended that the fall into the trees and ungraceful landing on the ground from branches had not hurt him, just like a true honor-bent psychic. The scars on his face seemed somehow deeper, and his skin hung heavier with weariness. His slit eyes looked up hazily and his flat mouth wore an eternal scowl.

"Hey, you look kind of familiar," Kuwabara speculated, scratching his chin.

"Of course he does! It's Getsuno! Remember? The guy I fought in the dark in Genkai's tournament way back when? The guy with the big nose helmet?" Yusuke waited until a look of revelation passed on Kuwabara's face.

"Oh, yeah. You're the guy who only smiles when he's beating someone up, right?"

"In an artificial body, I see," noticed Kurama, as Getsuno nodded solemnly.

"Wait, does that mean you're dead?" Yusuke turned on Getsuno again, whose expression had not changed as they discussed his apparent death.

"Technically, I am. It's just as he said. I'm not using my own body; I can't."

"Why?" asked Kuwabara hesitantly.

"Because I was killed." A brief look of consternation passed over his face, but he immediately concealed it. "I'm here to tell you how."

"But what does this have to do with our mission?" Yusuke folded his arms and questioned.

"Everything."

Aside from a few nods, the boys were silent and ready to listen.

"I don't have all the answers; hopefully you'll uncover those, Detective. But for a while human psychics have been inexplicably dying. There's no reason for how or why. The bodies have been turning up perfectly okay-"

"-except dead," Yusuke finished.

Getsuno nodded. "The body is simply exhumed of its psychic powers and spiritual energy-finally, its soul. So King Enma's son has sent protectors for us, to watch and seal us away. Fuwan was the last one I spoke with. He promised to fight off whatever was coming for him. . . but there was nothing he could do."

"Wait, so what's happening? I mean, don't you remember how you died?" Kuwabara's eyes were noticeably widened.

Getsuno was silent for a moment. His eyes were shut, and he seemed to be in deep thought. "I. . . don't think I _can_ explain it. A hole definitely opened in the earthly dimension, and not at random, either. I can't explain how it happened, and neither can Lord Koenma. There's barely anything that can open a portal between worlds, and even less that can do it at will. That's what you need to find out, and also why it needs the energy of psychics, which its been stealing." He swallowed. "At the cost of our lives."

"What, you don't want to help us?" Yusuke asked, only half teasing.

"It's not a matter of 'want'. I don't have my own body with the ki control I've acquired, for one thing. And I might have been able to work around that, if it weren't for the second matter- the reason I think I'm dead. Whatever came out of that portal, like I said, it sucked me dry for spirit energy. I don't know how, but it was like. . . something like being suffocated by a cold wind. What's more is that it damaged my spirit veins in the process, so to speak. It's left me unable to generate ki again, whatever it was."

"So, you think that it will come after Saika next?" Kurama asked.

"Lord Koenma told me about this. He filled me in on your mission, and he said that he sent you after the girl was because he thought it potentially might have been her. She wasn't the first. He theorized plenty of others. . . all of whom died in the same way. It's come down to a slim few, and because she was apparently spying on Kuwabara, Koenma thought it might be her. But since you're watching her now, and I was-" he swallowed almost nervously, "-was killed at the same time, it couldn't be her."

"Well-" Kuwabara began, but he fell silent as the others exchanged looks.

"You _have_ been watching her, haven't you?"

* * *

"You really are an idiot."

The cloaked man was easy to miss, considering his already misleading size, now highlighted by Saika's giant stature.

When Saika made a weak noise of confusion through her panting, he turned and reiterated, "You saw her use the mirror before, but then you didn't dodge when she went to use it on you."

Saika jaw dropped ever so slightly; she remembered that she wasn't dreaming, but she was instead lying half-alive on a grassy floor in a world of demons.

At that moment, Saika had the peculiar sensation of shrinking; she looked to her new cloak and found that she was right. Before she could form any thoughts on the matter, the woman holding the mirror gave a flustered cry and turned the looking-glass on them again.

That time, the cloaked man jumped away, leaving Saika to stumble and just barely miss being vaporized by the forceful lavender ray. The beam instead tore the ground all the way from the target spot down to the river, where it blew away a wave of water and crumbled the boulders above it.

The giants and even the woman looked in shock at the mirror, which before had not been so incredibly strong. Hiei narrowly surveyed Saika, who in turn surveyed herself for any more signs of shrinking. To her dismay, she had lost at least two more feet and let out a childish cry of surprise.

"Hey," Hiei called, and Saika looked up at him through her apparent tears of fright. "You want this, don't you?" he teased as he dangled the journal from his pocket in front of her face.

Before she could act, he leapt to a tree on the forest line. He perched himself on a branch and with a half-smirk, tilted his head toward the white-haired woman, who had been examining the mirror. Saika somewhat understood.

Feeling heavy and drained, Saika forced herself to stand. The woman smiled menacingly, turned the mirror on Saika again, and asked, "Take a look at your pasty face, sweetie. It's the last time you'll see it."

Saika smiled with confidence at her own reflection, for reasons unbeknownst to her, and waited for the light.

Something in her asked her what she was about to do, but something else kept her still. All that passed through her mind was the memory of her dreams, and the exaggerated nightmares she feared. Somehow, she had the idea that she would be confronted with them all very shortly.

As the woman laughed aloud, a ray of purple shot down the length of field and an explosion could clearly be seen through the Makai woods.


	14. Thorn Apple

**_. . . means disguise._**

**

* * *

_"Beware the Jub-Jub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!"_**

_

* * *

_

Clicking her tongue, Aki held out her arm for the blue and yellow-feathered bird to land.

It cawed to her, and she nodded knowingly.

"Yes, thank you. That's very helpful." It flew off and her placid demeanor immediately dissolved.

"Shiori got herself in trouble. Sounds like that psychic you were telling me about," she informed the clay-faced, hatted man behind her.

They both stood outside of the cave headquarters, watching a giant dust cloud and mess of splintered trees settling in the distance.

"That explosion we witnessed heard, huh?" he casually asked.

"What else?" she barked angrily. "I'm going to check it out, but you need to find the Spirit Detective."

"So he did come."

"Of course he did! The Reikai can't keep their heads out of our asses for a damn minute. I just need you to hold him off for as long as you can."

"I understand, but how can we beat them to her?"

A frightening smirk rippled over her mouth. "You let me worry about that."

* * *

For a moment, Saika thought she was dead. She could see only fog, smell only char, and taste only blood in her mouth. It certainly wasn't how she imagined death.

Maybe everyone else had died.

When Saika regained her senses and the pulsing pain in her head began to subside, the sounds of coughing around her became clearer. Even so, the explosion had the left her brain levitating in her head, or at least it felt that way.

Yet certainly there was a huge presence before her, and as a giant hand reached out for her through the cloud of smoke, Saika felt herself being pulled backward by the scruff of her cloak in the opposite direction.

Her first thought was not to fall, because as she was lifted off of the ground, it became all too apparent that she had lost another foot. She watched the grabbing hand fall onto the ground and become a silhouette in the blur.

Saika kicked and sprawled in the air, clinging to her cloak. She had a small coughing fit, having inhaled too much of the dust.

"Shut up," she heard a familiar voice hiss. The speaker threw her back against the tree upon which he stood, and it became apparent who he was.

The man appeared to be focussing, and Saika did as well; aside from brutish coughing (apparently from the giants), there was an eerie silence.

Just as Saika was sure she could hear the buzzing of demon insects, a pumping noise began to encroach from the distance. Saika waited with held breath as it came closer, too close, and then suddenly stopped.

Then, a crash boomed through the field, and the dissipating dust was blown quickly away. It happened too soon for Saika to close her eyes, and they immediately filled with dirt and tears.

She couldn't see what happened next, and as she desperately attempted to blink away the stinging, a huge roar blew with more power than the previous boom. Saika had the anguished sensation of trying to see the monster about to eat her, as from a nightmare, though on both ends of the situation she couldn't be saved. To see it, she knew, would only bring more horror.

When finally she could bring herself to open her eyes, she saw that the cloaked man was no longer before her on the branch but on a tree beside her.

She looked to him, as he watched twin tears fall from her eyes, and a sadistic smile broke across his face.

"What, do you expect me to save you again?"

And before the meaning of that could break, Saika instinctively turned and to see the white-haired woman. She was completely disheveled, with her dress torn and dirty and her curls turned to frizz.

But that was only the first thing to catch her eye. Above her, sitting atop a mess of fragmented trees was a scruffy-feathered bird, roughly the size of two passenger planes, with pointed claws for feet. It had a messy spectrum of patterns along its feathers, with garnet and pink stripes for its long but retracted neck, a blue and orange zig-zagged head, a green beak, brown and garnet wings, and bright orange feet.

The colorful, monstrous anomaly looked so imposing that Saika couldn't notice the woman perched upon it until she spoke.

"Embarrassing yourself again, I see."

At first, Saika thought she was addressing her, but the white woman turned her focus on the bird's owner with obvious aggravation.

"And where have you been?" the white woman shouted in response, abandoning all former composure.

"Waiting for you to come home."

In the silence that followed, Saika noticed that both the giants and the cloaked man were gone, leaving her alone with the white woman, the bird, and its rider. She backed up against the tree and looked for a way to lower herself down, only to see that she was more high above the ground than she would be willing to fall.

The white woman, on the other end of the field-turned-crater, seemed to be looking for an escape of her own.

"Well, I- I have the Looking-Glass! But I came to look for quick sacrifices, and then. . ." She closed her eyes and mouth, took in a deep breath, and rolled her shoulders back.

"And then you got your ass handed to you?"

"No!" She tossed her hair a final time, but without the reassuring effect it had before it was knotted with dirt. "I was taken for a turn by this giant."

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" the mysterious woman folded her arms and shook her head. "Can't you tell that it's a human?"

_It? _Saika had time to wonder as the white woman turned on her and gaped.

The white woman's mouth molded around the word _how _before the woman on the bird scolded, "It's because of your arrogance that you were deluded so easily. You came over here to bully some creatures you were sure you could beat, is that right? Your pride has always been your weakness. You truly are worthless."

Suddenly, the giant bird, which had been still, let out a huge roar and lowered its head to the white woman's level.

"Now give me the Looking-Glass, Shiori," the woman glowered menacingly.

The white woman, revealed to Saika to be Shiori, hesitated for a moment, and then instead turned the hand mirror on herself. A blue light came from the glass, and Shiori became a pale mist that was sucked into it. The mirror folded into itself and was gone.

"Dammit. . ." the woman atop the bird muttered before looking to Saika.

After a frightening once-over, the giant bird turned to the sky and was gone with another gust of wind.

* * *

Genkai took a deep sigh. In her obvious fighting tunic, she stood out like a fern amongst forget-me-nots.

She was sure they would scream, or argue in fits of denial.

Genkai sat in a cushioned rocking chair, staring down the married couple in their burgundy couch. She thought it must have been painstakingly matched to the baby blue wall paper, which in turn was probably planned to the wooden coffee table.

By that time, all of their teas had cooled, untouched.

Genkai thought, of all the reactions they could have had, that awkward silence was the worst. And after her well-prepared, convincing speech, too.

"So," Yatsu, Saika's stepfather, began, but didn't finish.

"My daughter is a demon, is that right?" asked Kaya, sounding much like a shaken bottle of soda.

"No, you've misunderstood." Genkai was trying to be as domestic as she could, and meticulously failing. "Your daughter is not the demon. The demons- well, all of that can be explained later. Your daughter is a psychic, much like myself."

Another silence passed, and Yuri, sitting erect in the arm chair across the table, opened her mouth to voice her obvious offense. Before she could, Kaya stood and somehow spoke through pursed lips, "Well, I'll just get these cups picked up, and you can be on your way.

Genkai clenched her jaw; no one was screaming, and that might have been a good sign.

Shrouded in soft blue light, the tea cup that Kaya reached for floated to the tea tray, followed by the other three.

"You don't have to listen to me, but I know where your daughter is. Her life and many others may be at stake now, if you ever intend to see her again, I suggest you come to my temple. That is all I came to say." With that, Genkai went without excusing herself up and out of the front door.

She hadn't reached the white gate before Yatsu had burst out the door and called to her.

* * *

Saika took that comfortable moment of solitude to wade in her sea of clothing. Without exposing herself, she examined the folded clothes she put in the pockets, only to find that her pants were completely nonfunctional. She shortly considered taking another bite of mushroom to fit something to wear, she was broken from her thought.

"I saw what you did," an all too familiar voice came from the tree above Saika, and aside from nearly toppling out, she held onto the branch and looked up to see the cloaked man.

"What is your name?" she nearly demanded, somehow ignoring his comment.

"You caused that, you know." He landed softly on the branch near her, staring at the crater that was once a river valley.

"Tell me what your name is," Saika somehow needed to know.

The man turned a sharp eye on her. "Is my name really so much more interesting than the fact that you just blew away the first layer of ground and scared away giants?" he spat acidly.

Blankly, Saika turned to look at the crater, wearing the peculiar expression she wore every day before she fell down the hole into Demon World.

"Or do you not want to see it?" He watched her teeth clench under her cheeks.

Making a sound of understanding, he crossed his arms and smirked hatefully. "It's too typical. You have the _idiocy_ to fear your own power. You're afraid it will get in the way of your human life."

Saika's mouth opened to speak, and a flame of anger passed over her face.

"You read it, didn't you? You read my journal." In response, he tossed the book carelessly into her lap.

"You only wanted to hide it so badly to hide your feelings, right? Pathetic."

"The same way you hide your name," Saika retorted in the same tone she might have told him to shut up. Her temper was thoroughly uninspiring with her breathy voice, especially considering who she spoke to.

"Does it really matter what I'm called?" he asked, and Saika stared stupidly as he perched precariously on the tip of the branch.

"No," she admitted. "No, but it's not fair. You know everything about me now but I don't even know who you are."

"I know everything, do I?" He turned completely around to her with an unreadable expression, as though wishing to ask something.

_"Because I can't for the life of me tell how you knew everything about us."_

His huge red eyes widened. She heard him.

"If you want to know my name then," he began as he reached for the cloth around his forehead. "-why don't you try to take the information from me? You've done it before with everything else. Let's see if you can."

Before Saika had to consider the frightening prospect of going head to head with a psychic demon, a heavy voice came from somewhere around them.

"Well don't you think it's rather foolish to wear yourselves out against each other in a place like this? When someone could come up upon you so easily."

Hiei was bristled like a frightened cat. He hadn't sensed anything, not a trace of energy, and he was fully focussed, prepared to take on Saika.

Saika held tight onto her sleeves and pulled them closer to her chest, as though that would help. The voice was familiar somehow, and came from everywhere.

"I see you've shrunken already, girl. That's what happens when you burn out energy so quickly." A sleek-maned black cat with huge yellow eyes appeared in the center of the crater, as though it were blown up to suit his purpose.

"You-" Saika whispered to herself, but both the man and the cat seemed to hear her.

"Seems like you've finally found a name for me," said the black cat through a crescent grin.

Hiei half turned to Saika, and after a few moments she realized what he meant, making a noise of recognition.

"Yes, now you remember. But I think I'll stick to me, because otherwise things would get complicated. Haha, but that's not what I'm here for. I finally remembered what I needed to tell you."

"Oh- what's that?"

"You should beware of a white-haired woman. The one they call White Queen."

After a startled pause, Saika said, "Yes, I already know that."

"And her sister, the Red Queen."

". . . yes, I saw her, too."

"Really? Oh. Then I'll be on my way."

"I don't think so," Hiei growled, his aura unreasonably livid. "How do you know him?"

It took Saika a moment to realize that he addressed the question to her, because even though she could only see the back of his head, she could tell he didn't take his eyes off of the cat.

"I-" Saika began, but thought of where her loyalties lay. "I don't have to tell you."

"This isn't the time for that, you complete idiot!" He spat every word with more anger and malice than Saika thought she deserved.

"Tsk, tsk, little boy. You won't make any friends with that tone. Haha, oh, now you want to penetrate _my_ mind? That won't be happening. Haven't you ever heard of apantomancy? Why, of course you wouldn't have. Such a young demon as you? Well, take note, now, because I'll only say it once. In my day, apantomancy was practiced by all psychics: it is the divination of chance meetings with animals, or other little things the wind brings along. Tell me, have you ever wondered why people say black cats are bad luck?"

The black cat's eyes dilated too quickly and much too ferociously.

"Because of me."

* * *

"Help me. . . help me. . ." An eerily pure voice came through the trees to the north. Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Getsuno all stood on alert.

"Please, help me. . ." A purely porcelain-skinned woman came through the shadows of the trees. She had trailing black hair, crystal blue eyes, and no clothing. She almost appeared as a ghost, the way her white skin reflected light, and her hair fell precariously over the parts that should have been hidden She had perfectly thin red lips, that mirrored the color of blood running in streams down her arms.

"I've been injured. I'm sick. Please, do whatever you want with me, but help me. . ." She seemed almost to be singing her pleas.

Kurama took a step forward, though it was unclear whether or not he meant to help her. All of the others boy remained tense and still.

"Well? We've got to help her, right?" Kuwabara seemed to be most affected by the sight of the tragically beautiful woman bleeding before them.

"There's a reason you didn't run at her, too, right?" asked Yusuke. "There's something fishy going on here."

"Help me. . . take me. . . love me. . ." she chanted more strangely each time before suddenly she was seemingly thrown with force into the air.

Instead of the pleas of a wounded woman, they heard a wretched, pinching roar. The shadows of the trees seemed to be moving; the boys leapt back just as those shadows became claws and landed on the ground where they stood.

It rose above the trees, swinging the woman by its tongue, a grey, nebulous beast with piny fur and pitch-black eyes darker than its coat. It stood on four near-talon claws The monster drew the woman's limp body back into its mouth, then shot it out again as it hung from a shadowy line on its back.

"Help me. . ." she continued to coo as she shot out towards Kuwabara and wrapped her arms around him. He was immediately ricocheted in her grip back into the shadow beast's mouth.

"Kuwabara!" Yusuke called, and all of the boys stared in disbelief as the monster's jaws tightened.

Then, after a moment of silence, the shadow monster made a gurgling noise in its throat, and a bright light tore through from the its chin up its cheek. Immediately Kuwabara came out, unscathed aside from some rather putrid drool on his jacket.

"Hey, you guys didn't actually think I was dead, did you?" he grinned boyishly.

"Wouldn't be the first time," replied before they both jumped away from the extending claw of the shadows beast. They all expected it to give another swipe, but it released a pinching roar (with which the woman simultaneously screamed) and recoiled.

A clay-faced demon leapt from the pitted shoulders of the beast, holding in its hand a chain that was apparently wrapped around the creature's throat. He pulled it again, and it released another painful roar, before sitting back on its haunches and eyeing the Spirit Detective and crew hungrily.

"Well, looks like we've got some Dark Tournament winners on our hands. Nice to finally meet you, Spirit Detective. I've heard many great things about you." He took off his strange headpiece and gave a sweeping bow. "And Youko Kurama, how I could I not recognize you?"

Getsuno, who stood slightly behind the others, drew a sharp breath and asked quietly, "Dark Tournament winners?"

"It's a long story," Yusuke dismissed him.

"Well, it's come to my attention that you've come to visit we in the Demon Realm. My name is Hata. May I be the first to say welcome?"

"No. We've already been greeted by a kemushi, thank you," said Kurama coldly.

"Well, I'm glad no one was injured," he lied as he scanned the men for weakened points.

"I'm sure," quipped Kurama.

"Hm. Not to be rude, now, I'm sure it was a long trip, but I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Yusuke shouted to him.

"Because we've got some business very important business going on now and I wouldn't want you to interrupt it."

"Business?" asked Kuwabara.

"That wouldn't happen to involve human girl, would it?" Kurama's eyes narrowed.

Fear passed across Hata's face for only a moment, before he maliciously sneered, "Well, I see reason never works on you heroic types. It seems I'll have to use other forms of negotiation."

Kuwabara took Getsuno's arm over his shoulder and they all leapt up in time to avoid the swiping claw of the chained beast.

Hata leapt onto the neck of the creature and pulled the chain. It shrieked, but on unspoken orders, released all of its nonexistent joints like noodles.

Sitting back on its haunches, the shadow creature extended its arms, its neck, and its tongue simultaneously. All on their own, they swerved around after the boys.

The false body of a woman shot after Kurama, looking increasingly less beautiful. Immediately he drew his rose whip and lashed it around the "woman". She screamed, and for a moment he nearly regretted it, but she withdrew into the beast's mouth so quickly that he had the whip snatched from his hand.

Again, he leapt away from the reaching arms of the woman's corpse.

Kuwabara, with his spirit sword and Getsuno in tow, swung at the outstretched claw of the creature. To his delight, the dark claw was shredded as easily as curtains lighten a room. To his dismay, it reformed as quickly as his sword moved away from it.

Upon seeing the horror on Kuwabara's face, Getsuno urged, "Just leave me!"

"Uh-uh, no way!"

"What's the point? I'm already dead!" he protested, but Kuwabara continued to futilely fight off the shadow claw with his focussed spirit sword while he heaved Getsuno on his back.

Yusuke had similar problems; he could only jump away from and avoid the twisting claw of the beast, as it wasn't responsive to punches and he couldn't afford to waste a shot of the spirit gun.

Suddenly an idea struck him. Jumping to the top of the highest tree branch diagonally, with the claw in pursuit, jumped quickly to the a higher tree branch across the field, jumped to the forest floor, and jumped through the hoop in the creature's arm he had made.

Yusuke chuckled to himself as he saw the claw snap the knot tight, then refrained from gasping when the arm momentarily evaporated and reappeared un-knotted to continue after him.

"You just don't give up, do you?" In his anger, Yusuke attempted to attack Hata on top of the monster, but the claw blocked him. "_Damnit_!"

Kuwabara, behind him, was cornered in the middle of the field with his spirit sword sputtering out.

"It must be _taking away _the energy!" deduced Getsuno, just as Kuwabara's sword disappeared in his hand.

The shadow claw shot out to him, and just as it hovered above he and Getsuno on the ground, it flew back and waved in the air.

The beast was crying out it pain, concurrently with the woman's body. It threw back its claws as though reaching for its head, but the arms wavered as though threatening to evaporate.

"What the-" But before Yusuke could finish, he saw vines wrapping coming out of the monster's mouth, also breaking its apparent skin from inside of it.

"The rose whip!" realized Kuwabara.

As the living plants burst from inside the beast, they ensnared it and quickly its limbs and the most of its body vaporized. A tangle of foliage consumed the creature until there was no shadow left of it.

The vines twitched for a few quiet moments, but soon receded into a rose whip that Kurama went and recovered.

There on the ground laid the woman, looking very much dead, with only something like a limp grey horn protruding from her back, and shreds of darkness beneath her. The peculiar chain that had been around its neck laid beside her.

"Hey- thanks for that, Kurama," said Kuwabara as he stood and helped Getsuno from the ground.

"No problem."

"Damnit! That guy got away."

"What was that thing?" asked Getsuno, and to everyone's shock, Kurama had an answer.

"The Bando Sunachii. I've never seen it before, but I heard of it a very long time ago, a shadow creature that lures others in with a ghostly woman. It's supposed to be an ancient monster- a legend, not a race or herd of its own. I knew that even if it focussed shadows into form for protection, it must have some living core, and bodily tissue- I suppose that must be it," he looked to the grey horn in between the woman's shoulders and the shreds around her.

"So it's definitely dead, right?" asked Kuwabara as he approached the woman's corpse.

"I don't imagine it'll have much luck without its only internal organ. But there's something that's bothering me. The Bando Sunachii was supposed to hunt demons, not follow them, so even if Hata had him chained, couldn't it evaporate itself out from the chain?"

"You tell us, Sherlock," quipped Yusuke as he lifted the chain's collar, which upon closer inspection, appeared to be a delightfully flirty shade of red.

* * *

The cab ride passed in silence, and that was the way Genkai preferred it.

After all, no parents took joy in discussing their child's imminent doom, even less so in front of a taxi cab driver.

Finally, they came to Genkai's temple, the foot of which astounded all three Yatsu, Yuri, and Kaya.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Come on, now. I want time to make tea before I have to explain all of the ways your daughter might die."

* * *

**A thousand lashes with a wet noodle will do. No need to crucify me, please! You see, I was whisked away to the Florida Keys (and Harry Potter Land, bitches! :D Teehee, sorry.) for a few weeks, among other Florida-related destinations, so please don't hate me for not having updated in a century. I have a life too, you know. But I'll probably update again tomorrow, considering this chapter left so much undone (but what did you think of that fight scene? I hope it wasn't boring), and I want to tell you all more about Hata, the cat, and the Looking-Glass. They all of their reasons! And are the battle challenges too generic? I feel it's like, "Hi, my name's Bob. I'ma kill yo ass!" I just don't want you to forget that this loser (a.k.a. Saika) is in mortal danger, and for more reasons than that she's running around a world full of One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eaters. (Explanations come later!) In the mean time. . . Thank you. Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites, and hits on my story! Even though this chapter passed so excruciatingly (I wrote like a sentence every night on my trip. . .), I finally have it up and I have a clear idea where I'm going. I haven't responded a lot of the reviews, and I'm sorry. I'll get on that immediately, because I always hate not doing that. But I hope you know that I read them as soon as they come, and I always love them, especially when you tell me what I'm doing wrong. Also. As promised, I now announce the winner of our official 50th review giving event. . . drum roll please. . . thank you, Dani. . . my beloved, the one, the only, ZETSUBEL! It couldn't be anyone but you, babe. x) Please request your reward at your convenience, and feel free to demand anything you want that I could possibly give you via . I love you, I love you all. :) In any case, if you're wondering how I've been on my brief fall from the surface of the internet, I have an aching bee sting placed peculiarly on my back, I am tired as hell, I am engaged to John Mayer, I am taking up crew, and I am reading up on Greek myths. (If you know me and my other stories, you know why this is important. :D) As always, I adore you all, I'm sorry for being an idiot, and I hope your review me telling me how pissed your are at me for being an idiot and persisting to adore you. (Case and point: you request smaller chapters and quicker updates, I give you the longest chapter yet after all of you have forgotten you ever read this story. Case closed.)**


	15. Dragonswort

**_. . . means horror.

* * *

_**

_"Then is would die, of course." _

_"That must happen very often," Alice remarked thoughtfully. _

_"It always happens."_

* * *

Growing, glowing; it morphed before their eyes.

Albeit unusually large, the black cat before seemed scruffy and nothing more. That, apparently, was misleading: as they watched, its tail forked, its fur flared, its eyes burned.

As its shape shifted, stripes of indigo broke out on its back and on its face like a dark tiger, and its eyes widened to moon-like proportions. By the time it was through, it was the size of a young elephant.

Saika recognized it as a nekomata of old myth, except significantly more terrifying.

Finally, it stood on its hind legs, looking particularly pleased.

"Do you want to know my name now?"

It opened its mouth, presumably to tell its name, but instead blew a red, ghostly fireball at the tree where they stood.

Saika didn't have time to believe what she was seeing before Hiei grabbed her by the arm and yanked her from the tree branch to another tree, then toss her quickly to the ground behind the tree.

She peaked around and watched furtively as Hiei, whose name she did not know, drew his sword.

There was enough time to see his sword half drawn, but in an invisible instant the slash was made.

The black cat dodged and blew another fireball at Hiei, who leapt back and into to air to avoid it. He brought his hands to his mouth and blew a some flames of his own, which the cat used its front paws to jump back from.

Hiei slid across the path of the cat, brandishing his sword again, but then the nekomata blew a flame ball at Saika.

Though this took her a few moments to realize, Hiei had enough time to shout, "Move, idiot!" and rescue her at the same time, although rather roughly.

Saika rolled on the ground several times before catching herself, as Hiei had thrown her. She tried desperately to see through her tangled, dirt-filled mess of hair, leaning on her wrist she was realizing to be sprained.

Hiei stood in front of her, but she had enough room to see the cat smiling insanely over at them. Again, he stood back on his hind legs, as though the maniacal grin wasn't enough indication that he was a rather unusual kitty.

"Why go after her? Are you too afraid to take me head on?"

"I have a better question, boy, and that is, why protect her?"

Saika could hear both the growl and the teeth clenching with which Hiei replied.

"I'm here on commission from the Spirit World, so this girl is off limits _for the time being_."

"It seems to me like she could protect herself, couldn't she? After all, she gave us this nice little dent in the ground, did she not?" he referred to the crater created by Saika's clash with the White Queen.

"How did you know that?" Saika nearly whimpered as she looked through a curtain of her hair and propped herself up on her elbow.

"Why, I watched the whole thing, my dear. Rather impressive, if I do say so myself."

"That's not possible!" interjected Hiei.

"Oh? And how do you figure that?"

"Because I've been here the entire time, and I didn't sense you for a second!"

An awkward silence passed, in which the cat's grin widened and Saika felt significantly less protected. (Not only because the cat obviously had a trump card, but because the cloaked man also enjoyed to see her struggle.)

"You were. . ." Saika began, but stopped when the cat burst out laughing.

"As I, as I, my little friend! Oh, you think you're so smart. I absolutely despise your type."

"Don't get high and mighty with me!" Hiei bristled, holding his blade battle ready before him.

"Well, I don't know when you were born, little boy, but in my time, mine were the stories that _demons _told when they wanted to scare each other. Haha, so you don't believe me? Well, among some of my names, you might recognize the Harbinger of Darkness? Hmm, what about Grim Morrow? No? Old Scratch? Why, it seems I've been gone longer than I thought. Hm, no matter. My real name is of no importance now. It doesn't make a difference, but as you might have guessed, I have no distinguishable energy signature. You can't trace me, so it doesn't matter if you know. Hahahaha! So keep trying, boy. But now's the time when you answer my questions. I'm curious about you, girl."

If it was at all possible, his eyes widened again, with their focus on her. Hiei took an offensive step forward, but Saika, against all of her better judgments, indulged him.

"What do you want to know?" she asked breathily.

"Oh dear, are you sure you want to know? Why, curiosity once killed me."

Sitting up on her knees and pulling her hair out of her face, Saika opened her mouth to speak, but paused, if only because she couldn't come up with an answer in her immediate conscious. She was sure she had a good answer somewhere, though, and so far her instincts were the only things she found trustworthy.

"I'm listening."

"Are you an idiot?" Hiei hissed to her with his head half-turned, his words becoming more caustic as he spoke. "I know you're new here, so I'll fill you in. The only time when a demon wants to talk to you in the middle of a battle is when they went you to let your guard down!"

Saika looked at the cloaked man blankly, then turned her eyes to the black nekomata. Despite her own sense of reason and Hiei berating her simultaneously and logically, Saika had her mind made up.

And she prayed to God that she would realize why the hell that was before she sealed her own death.

"This is a pleasant surprise." The nekomata crouched casually, his tail swishing thickly behind him. "So let's start here, dear, what is your name?"

"Saika," she replied blankly and stupidly, and though Hiei was wary, he also seemed eager to learn what the black cat wanted. "My name is Saika Ota."

"Well, Saika Ota, it's really a pleasure. I've never met such an intriguing human before. I do hope you persist to intrigue me."

Saika realized the threat in those words.

"Now riddle me this, Saika Ota, how did you come to find yourself here in our humble Makai?"

"This is called. . . Makai."

"Yes, indeed it is. Why, it seems no one has properly welcomed you!"

"No, I've been welcomed plenty of ways. . . I fell here by accident, I guess. I was running away from. . ." Saika's eyes wandered onto Hiei.

"I see. So then the Spirit World is hunting psychics again."

Silence.

_"Hunting?"_

"Wait- what do you mean, hunting?"

"Well, as I remember it, human psychics had the habit of befriending and utilizing demons, using them against other humans and each other. So the Reikai hired some demons and psychics of their own to hunt down and put an end to the madness. Permanently."

Saika looked to the cloaked man, who made no movements and continued to face away from her.

Her heart began to drum. She felt as though fear itself was pouring into her veins.

They were trying to _kill_ her. They were.

She wasn't safe with the cloaked man or the demons. She wasn't safe anywhere. She was going to _die_.

Hyperventilating, Saika crawled back from the cloaked man until she hit a tree.

* * *

_Night, sweat, fear. Running. Falling. Screaming. Begging. _

_No mercy._

* * *

"I don't know anything about that, and honestly, I don't care. I'm going to do what I was sent here to do so I can be done running errands for the Reikai," Hiei spoke cooly.

"Then why didn't you get the girl earlier, may I ask? You've been putting it off, I see. So why is that?" Those words were whispered and meant specifically for Hiei.

It didn't matter; Saika's hands were over her ears.

* * *

_"He's here! Run- gahh!"_

_Claws. Blood. Pain, and stillness._

_"No. . . No. . . I don't want to die!"_

_Gag._

_

* * *

_

Hiei's eyes narrowed. "What is it to you?"

"Admit it. You're just as curious as I am. You want to see what the girl can do. You feel it too! That pressure coming from her? It's like nothing I've ever sensed from a mere human. There's something swelling in of her, and just like me, you want to be the one to make it burst."

Finally turning on his heel, Hiei dismissed him. "I'm not like you."

The cat's eyes spread. "We're all this way."

Hiei ignored him, and shouted to Saika, "Hey! Quit crying over there. We're going now."

"She appears to be having visions."

Saika was rolled up in a ball, holding her head and sobbing into her knees. It was like someone's life was flashing through her mind.

"Hey! Did you hear me?"

* * *

_"No! Stop!"_

_"Lord Enma said. . ."_

_"Call the Kuro! He-"_

_"Contact Lord Enma! They have the-"_

_"No, stop!"_

_"We have to run!"_

_"It's too late now!"_

_"Oh, God, oh my God!"_

_"I don't, no, I- ah!"_

_"Get out of here! NOW!"_

_"No! No, please, no! Someone help!"_

_Scream. Silence._

_

* * *

_

Saika leaned up on the tree, her face strained and full of fear. Hiei was watching her questioningly, but instead of asking, he pressed into her mind for the answer.

As soon as he tried, she screamed, precisely at the time that hell broke lose.

The tree behind Saika fell down, and Hiei leapt back to avoid its smashing into his exact location.

Saika looked into her hands, but they were glowing with purple flames that accented her fear.

"What are you doing?" Hiei barked at her, but she couldn't hear him over the sound of her own screaming.

Saika ran into the center of the crater. She stumbled and fell.

Looking up with eyes glowing violet, she saw the cat.

"Kuro," she spoke with a voice she didn't recognize. "Kuro!"

To her horror, he burst out laughing. She leapt up and swiped at him with her fiery claws.

_'Claws.'_

Saika was blind. She couldn't see anything but the floodgate that opened, the violet flames that poured out. She was tearing desperately into nothing, begging to get out, to see a light, to see something.

Everything burned.

"It's hot! It's too hot!" she cried for no one to hear.

Something hard came down on her head, and it hurt.

Pain. Pain was something. Somehow, she was okay with feeling pain.

Saika opened her eyes, to see she was on the ground looking up again, at that cloaked man. He had hit her with the hilt of his sword.

"You're being stupid, throwing away your energy like that."

"Haha! Did you really have to blow flames at her? And who are you to lecture? I'm surprised by just how much energy she has stored up. She _ought_ to let it go!" The cat laid far behind them, swishing his tail excitedly. "Quite a show you're putting on, girl, even if it is rather pitiful to watch."

Hiei turned and smirked. "At whose expense?"

The cat, having realized the lingering purple flame on his tail, flicked it quickly to put the fire out.

"Now are you finished?" asked Hiei to Saika, as though dealing with a petulant child.

Saika wondered how they could be so casual when so many people had died. When they had killed so many people, when she was going to die.

With anger she didn't understand, Saika kicked at the man. She was sure that her foot didn't make contact, but he somehow forcefully flew back.

Saika realized that her leg was engulfed purple flames. Somehow, though, they weren't burning her, even though her clothes were slightly charred. They felt cool and light, and she was feeling surprisingly powerful and unafraid.

"Let me give you a small lesson in aural physics, boy, in case you're unaware," the cat spoke seriously to Hiei, who stood beside him, while they both faced the girl. "That pressure you're feeling is not an ordinary demonic energy. It's her spiritual aura. I can see it's been pent up in her for a long time- I'm surprised she had the strength to keep it in. Introspective psychics like you can't do this- I've haven't seen any human do this in a long time. That's raw energy you see around her."

Hiei clenched his teeth and asked begrudgingly, "If she's an aural psychic, can't we just-"

"That's the tricky thing. She's not an aural psychic. Something about her wavelength, as far as I can tell- she's not restricted to visions, or thought reading, or aural sensitivity like you're probably used to seeing. I've seen this only once before. Her body is mass producing energy; it probably has been her entire life."

As the cat spoke, Saika's entire body was slowly engulfed in those violet flames. She watched with wide eyes, writhing and grunting in frustration and fear.

"That pressure. . . I wonder if it was wise to draw it out?"

"She's still only human," said Hiei as he half drew his katana.

The cat strolled casually around Saika in a circle, though she barely noticed him.

"Are you so sure about that?"

* * *

"I'm not beaten yet."

Dirt-splotched, Hata wasn't sure which of his bones were broken, but he didn't have time to care.

He grappled with the chains holding onto spikes in the cave. Luckily, he only had to undo about four chains before the beast did the rest.

_"RAAAAWRRR!"_

That growl literally shook the cave, but that wasn't the sound that struck fear in Hata. It was the gravelly chuckling that came after it.

"Long time, no see, Hata."

"Zetsu." All that stuck out of the darkness was a pair of black stilettos, crossed and resting confidently on a high rocky ledge. She didn't need to show herself. He knew.

"That's Miss Madame Lord Head-Bitch-In-Charge, to you, Hata."

"I can tell what you're after, here, Zetsu, and we don't need you screwing things up anymore."

"What, don't you trust me?" Still hooded in darkness, Zetsu went and tore the final chain from the wall. "Fine. If you won't tell me, I'll just go check things out on my own. Come on, Woki. You've got a new mama now."

* * *

Kaya wasn't usually so resolutely rude, but then, "mama bear".

As soon as Genkai had them up to her temple, she didn't seem too keen to talk. She took her time making tea, sitting her guests on cushions in the foyer, and sipping that tea slowly and sagely.

"Poisonous atmosphere, carnivorous plants, waring demons, hordes of monsters, and incompetent teenagers."

Genkai thought they must have forgotten, or otherwise they didn't believe her. Which she was fine with.

"If you didn't want any tea, you could have just said so," she spoke casually.

"I want to know where my daughter is!" Kaya's voice had more than a hint of despair.

"Kaya." Yatsu quieted her before continuing. After all, he was the professional. "Please-Genkai, was it?-we're very worried, and did you not invite us here for the sole purpose of explaining what's going on?"

"Hm. Fine then." Genkai set her cup down and took a deep breath. "But remember that you asked for this. I've had a lot of students in the past that get abandoned all too quickly by loved ones in situations like this, when things become- strenuous."

Teary-eyed, firm-jawed, Kaya affirmed, "I would _never_ do that to my daughter."

Yatsu and Yuri said nothing.

"Hm. Don't say I didn't warn you. Well, in layman's terms, your daughter is in hell." Genkai looked at the three plebeians with gaping mouths. She cleared her throat. "Let me explain. What I mean to say is that your daughter has fallen into an alternate realm occupied by demons. Spirited away, in a sense."

She paused, if only to glance again at their astounded expressions.

"I'm not asking you to believe me now, ask yourselves, have you ever noticed anything strange about Saika?"

The first one to speak up was Yuri.

"Yeah, she never seems to talk to anyone. Like, she doesn't have any friends."

"More than that. Do things around her tend to break? Are those close to her unlucky?"

All looked to Kaya, who appeared to take those words into the most consideration.

"Now that you mention it. . . yes. She always seems to. . . the broken windows, all of my fine china, we can never keep vases in the house. . . and just last week. . ."

Kaya related every suspicious, seemingly isolated incidence of Saika's accidents. As she did, the fear in revelation spread over her face.

"What does it mean? What does this all _mean_?" Kaya's hazel eyes filled with tears. "My daughter isn't a monster. She's good! She's always been a good girl!"

"This doesn't have anything to do with what she did right or wrong. From what I can tell, Saika has had extra sensory powers for a long time. These things are inherited at birth, but they can skip decades of generations. I'm assuming you've never had to deal with this before?" Genkai glanced at Kaya, whose eyes were set, despite the tears. "Well, it's usually more obvious when children have such powers. She's obviously been suppressing it for a long time, and it only makes sense that it would come out now."

"What are you talking about?" Yatsu snapped, undoing his elaborately coiffed hair. He was probably taking it the worst.

"Two key factors: first of all, puberty. The same way that the body is producing excess hormones, it's producing more energy than ever. And also the Spirit World's situation- I won't tell you everything, but this is a _very_ dangerous time for psychics. They've been dropping like flies, and we barely know why. We sent some-" she refrained from saying 'idiots- "-scouts to investigate Saika, because she was one of the few that remained."

"To protect her?" Kaya swallowed, looking relieved.

"If the situation called for it. But due to some rather unlikely circumstances, she ran away from them to a small rift in the demon world barrier. She had probably sensed it and thought it was an escape- again, she probably doesn't know much about this at all."

"Well what can we do to get her back?" asked Yatsu.

"It's not a matter of going after her- those- erm- scouts I told you about are already doing that. It's a matter of what to do with her when- and if- she comes back."

The word "if" set off a conversational bomb.

"Um, _excuse me_?"

"Hold on a minute-"

"What do you mean by 'if'?"

"That's not your concern," Genkai directed her words toward Kaya.

"It is _absolutely_ my concern!

Genkai's voice and eyes hardened. "There's nothing you can do now! And what exactly do you intend to do when she comes back, anyway? Pretend like nothing ever happened? Or maybe send her off to an institution! Is that it?"

"Never! I would never do such a thing-"

Well then what _are_ you going to do?"

Kaya had imagined Saika's return with blankets, hot cocoa, and promises never to run away again.

"I. . . I don't know. I just don't know." Kaya covered her eyes and began to weep as Yatsu put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "This. . . this is just too much."

"Hm. Then I have a proposition for you."

Kaya was too busy crying to ask what.

"I suggest you put Saika under my tutelage."

"What- what do you mean?" hiccuped Kaya.

"I'll teach Saika to control her powers, so that she can live her life normally. It will involve weeks of hard practice. I'll require her to come and live in my temple for perhaps several months, and during that time I need your permission for my to keep her and have her do whatever is necessary for control."

Yatsu was the first to object, but Genkai stopped him.

"I'm not asking you to agree right away. You have no reason to believe anything I've said. Wait until you see Saika again before you make any decisions; then you'll understand why she needs my help."

* * *

**Too long? I felt that way. Such a prolonged update. I felt guilty until I saw that none of my other favorites updated either. *cries* But a lot happened, right? :D Soooo, you like? Or you hate me for being late and giving you two drawn out scenes that could have been summarized in sentences? Yeah, but as I wrote, it occurred to me that you guys actually don't know where I'm going with this, so getting there quickly and putting it out there would be best. Haha, so did you guys see that coming with Genkai? What? And you think that the "Cheshire" Cat, Miss Head-Bitch-in-Charge, and Saika's family won't be important? Well, think again, sugar! I'm about to drop the bomb, next chapter. I promise. Why? Spoilers!: Woki, Spirit Detective, Kuro, and Enma. Be prepared!**


	16. Deadly Nightshade

**_. . . means silence._**

**_

* * *

_**

_"The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,_

_Came whiffling through the tugley wood,_

_And burbled as it came!"_

_

* * *

_

Perhaps it was the longest his sword had been drawn without drawing blood.

"How much longer can you detain her without killing her?" The grinning cat leapt back to avoid a violet flare on his right. The smile at that point was forced.

Saika was completely consumed in those flames, throwing them off of her in a half-conscious fury. Her mind was elsewhere.

Hiei spat on the ground. "No longer," he growled as he took his band from his head.

"Oh, I was wondering when you would decide to off her already."

"Not that, either."

"Pity. I was looking forward to seeing what you could do, as well."

Hiei's third eye opened wide.

"Can I believe that you won't attack me while I'm off guard?"

"No," the cat grinned.

Hiei bared his teeth, a sort of primal grin-grimace. "I'd expect no less."

While all of that raw energy was pouring out, Hiei easily came into Saika's open mind, like slipping under a waterfall.

He saw what she saw.

* * *

Dark, faded shadows; someone else's memory, or an omen of things to come? Saika felt it was both.

She could see everything, like a ghost hovering above the scene.

The monster, tall and terrifying, bore down with breath of fire on the uniformed people below it.

"Enma! You have to contact Enma! We need reinforcements. . ."

The people looked like ants, running frantically with nowhere to go on the eerily familiar forest floor.

"There _are_ no reinforcements! Everyone's occupied, fighting the clan, the Bando Sunachi. . ."

"We can't handle this on our own!"

"Don't tell me you've given up already! We have to take the chance!"

A dark-haired woman, strong-jawed and frighteningly beautiful, came from behind the cat. She stood on its back. Smiling down on the desperate crowd, she took out something Saika immediately recognized.

It was the Looking-Glass, the silver handed mirror that the White Woman had held, looking particularly less ancient.

She held it out over the crowd, and in an instant, it consumed them.

There was no other word to describe it.

A white light spread over the them all. That was when the screaming began, but it didn't last long. Like a single cry of shared agony that crescendoed and then was silenced.

That light and post-scream silence consumed everything, and the pseudo-dream's darkness whited out, until the light faded and the scene repeated itself again.

Saika tried to cover her ears, but the sounds of battle vibrated through her, in the distance, before her eyes, within every fiber of her being. She tried to scream.

She couldn't even hear herself.

Then a voice broke the cacophony:

"You let it control you."

Saika looked up, and hovering beside her was the cloaked man, confident and lax as ever.

"They're all dying!"

"They're already dead. You're only seeing a vision of the past."

"They're just. . . dead. . . ?"

Hiei stood there, in the midair of her vision, watching Saika try and block it all out. That was impossible, obviously, because it was funneling through her very brain. All he could think of was how pathetic, how worm-like, how wretched she looked there.

Hiei made a noise of dissent.

"You are probably the most _infuriating_ human I've ever met."

This drew Saika's attention.

"I can't stand you." His expression made her believe it. "I hope that gives you _satisfaction_. I've lived the most of my life hating power-hungry cowards, or cocky, over-confident idiots. I've known too many of them. I've killed plenty of them. But you, you are singularly the most annoying and miserable creature I've ever come in contact with."

Saika's face dripped with horror. She had never been talked to that way.

Roughly, Hiei grabbed the hair that was always falling in her face by the roots and turned her up to face him.

"You have power, but you don't use it. Even when it might save you, you don't. Is that it? Are you just that _special_ kind of weakling? You won't even face yourself? You don't deserve it. You see this?"

He pointed with his free hand to the third eye on his forehead, which Saika had noticed but ignored along with all of the other strange things.

"This is the price I paid to have _my_ psychic powers. I had it surgically implanted at the price of most of my powers and an enormous amount of pain. But you? You're just born with a giant store of power, and you don't even make _use_ of it. You hide it because you can't face reality. You're _disgusting_."

Hiei spat those words in her face, and they seemed to strike a chord.

He let go of her, but she said nothing, only avoiding his gaze.

Before Hiei could call her a coward for not even speaking, Saika spoke.

"I think you're right. But there's something you missed."

Before those angering words could set Hiei on another tangent, she stopped him.

"You say 'face reality', but what does that mean? This morning I thought my reality was just going to school, doing my chores, and staying unnoticed. And then I could make reality whatever I wanted it to be. But now it's all size-changing mushrooms, and demons, and just trying to stay alive. . . this is like something out of a crazy nightmare. I wish it could be just a nightmare. But I know now that it isn't. I can't pretend it away."

"That's life. Make-believe is for children with too much time."

"But it was real this morning, and I didn't know it. So what's the difference?"

Hiei crossed his arms. "Ignorance isn't an excuse. The knife behind your neck doesn't need your awareness of its existence in order to kill you. You can't ignore it, you can't 'pretend' it away."

Saika smiled vaguely. "You'd be surprised what you could pretend away."

Before Hiei could completely reject that thought, a voice boomed from around them.

"_Well, as I always say, it's best to stop at the climax! It seems this vision you've stumbled upon is mine, dear girl, and I just can't allow that_."

* * *

Being thrown forcefully from a trance has the effect of being thrown off of an angry bull, Saika found.

Hiei was bent on his knee, holding his unsheathed katana. Obviously he knew the experience well. Hiei was facing the black cat, whose voice was the last thing Saika remembered hearing.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that it's impolite to eavesdrop?" asked the cat, his huge grin looking increasingly more like a grimace.

"I could say the same thing."

Definitely a grimace. "You two haven't any business in my memories."

Hiei took this information in. He seemed not to know exactly where they had been.

"Obviously we do, or the girl wouldn't have subconsciously latched onto you. And what's the connection between you and that mirror?"

For a moment, the cat's expression was completely sober. Saika feared they might see the aggressive parallel to his flighty insanity.

"Haha, yes, I suppose you can't help but be curious. Very well, I'll tell you, though I doubt it'll make a difference."

Saika couldn't tell why she was glad to see the creepy grin bloom again on the black cat.

"Now, ignorant as you both seem to be of Demon World history, I'll have to fill you in. A long time ago-before the birth of Koenma, if that's any indication- there was a prominent clan of demons called the Underground Isei. They weren't all related by blood, but they collected strong demons and mated them to fuse the myriad of unique powers they shared. For a mutual benefits, if you will. Looking back, it was more of a cult. And in retrospect, I suppose they sought to take the Demon Realm from the Three Kings. They collected powerful artifacts and tamed monsters to join their forces. I was one of those monsters, though I don't like to think I was tamed. I joined of my own free will, I assure you, if only to enjoy the company of the Mirror's master. She was the woman you saw in my memory, and the only one whose orders I would obey." His large, yellow eyes glazed over.

The cat became silent, a silence almost tender, and Saika suddenly appreciated him much more.

"We don't want your life story. What does this have to do with the hand mirror?"

"I'm getting there," the black nekomata assured, not impatiently. "You see, it happened that my master was the one who forged the Looking-Glass to which you refer. I suppose you want to know what it does. Well, as was my mistress's power, she could cross and create dimensions at will. You can obviously tell why Spirit World officials wanted her out of the way as she interfered with their territory in the human world. This was the time humans called the Dark Ages, I believe?"

The black cat sat slowly and looked up at the sky with his same crazy smile, but a different look in his moon eyes. He seemed to be recalling a bittersweet memory.

"She forged the mirror as an outlet for her powers. In the process, she became weak for a very long time, relying on the mirror for protection until she could rejuvenate. As the Spirit World sent more forces against us, and with them and the combined efforts of the Three Kings, it became clear to my mistress that we would lose the war. So she began to consume thousands of life forces from humans, demons, and Spirit World warriors alike. That's how the Looking-Glass works, by taking spiritual power away. She contained all of that energy in a separate dimension designed specifically for me, and pulled me into it to in turn consume that raw energy.

"I couldn't describe the excruciating pain of all that power." Still, he smiled. "I suppose it was a healthy mixture of electrocution and suffocation."

Saika looked around and wanted someone to be shocked with, but both Hiei and the cat took that statement in stride.

"Time stood still in that place, and I couldn't move or breath, but I waited in faith that when she brought me out to fight again we would be happy. I no longer desired to fight, even, which was my original reason for joining the Underground Isei. I only wanted to be free of the pain and fulfill my purpose by my mistess' side.

"The Looking-Glass, however, is a door that can only be opened from one side. After perhaps an eternity, I was released, but not by my mistress."

"Then what happened?" Saika burst out. "Who brought you out?"

"I think you can guess. Those two little girls, the ones who can't tell when a battle is lost. They invited me to fight with them. I denied them, of course, because I have no patience for over-ambitious fools. Those other monsters, stored as I was, went to fight for whoever released them. I think that has something to do with that woman's beast-taming abilities, though. But like I said, I don't consider myself 'tamed'.

"The truth is, with all the power I've consumed, I could probably win them that battle."

"Then why don't you?" Hiei eyed him suspiciously.

The cat continued to stare into the distance, but then leapt away as though it had evaporated.

Hiei surprisingly sheathed his sword, pushing Saika forward onto her knees. The cat reappeared far behind them in the corner of the field. His smile persisted.

"I see our conversation is at its end."

"Don't count on it," Hiei smirked.

Then, from the woods, Yusuke Urameshi, Kazuma Kuwabara, the gorgeous red-head, and a bearded man came running at Saika and Hiei.

* * *

"Hiei!" Yusuke called, though the other men looked like they might have done the same.

"It's about time, Spirit Detective." Hiei put his foot on Saika's back and kicked her forward a little more. "I found the girl."

For a fleeting second, Saika felt saved. Then, as Yusuke grabbed her by the collar of her coat, she recalled what the cat said about the Spirit World hunting psychics.

"Hey, you've got some questions to answer, hear me?" he shouted angrily in her face, though she only stared wide-eyed at him, scrambling and trying to get away.

"Yusuke," Kurama slowly drew Yusuke's hands off of Saika, though he clearly kept a hold on her shoulder, a hand which froze her. "As he said, you'll have to come with us. It would be best if you didn't resist."

Still, Saika instinctually stepped back, only to trip over her feet and crawl desperately backwards.

"If it makes a difference, I've confirmed that she isn't hostile," Hiei flippantly informed them.

"What about that- thing?" Kuwabara asked, looking cautiously at the giant cat.

"He's not an immediate threat."

"Are you so sure about that, Hiei?" The cat tasted the name he had just heard.

"Hiei?" Saika echoed.

"I'm sure. You can't possibly take us all."

"Well, it seems you weren't listening to my story after all." But still, Hiei ignored him.

"Hiei," Saika repeated again. "Hiei?" She looked up at him, as though questioning as to why he'd have such a name.

"Would you shut up?" he barked, though never taking his eyes off of the cat.

Their seemed to be some unreadable tension between Hiei and Kuro, if only for a moment, perhaps while some thoughts were telepathically exchanged. But there was no way of knowing.

With a whisper of the wind, the cat was gone.

Somehow, Saika didn't feel anymore safe. If anything, she felt increasingly endangered.

"Now, it's about time you started answering some questions!" Yusuke marched over to Saika. He lifted her by her collar off of the ground.

"But Yusuke, what about the-" Kuwabara began, but was silenced when Yusuke responded, "That can come later! Right now I want some damn answers!"

Saika began to tremble, and her hands began to glow.

"First of all, how the hell-"

"It's not her," the bearded man beside Kuwabara interrupted.

A dead moment of stupid silence.

"_WHAT_?" Yusuke barked.

"The one who killed me- it wasn't this girl. Her energy doesn't reflect the one I felt before."

"So you're telling me we've been chasing this girl down to the fucking Demon World for _nothing_?"

"Not exactly," Kurama cut in. "We still have some things to clear up, even if you say in wasn't Saika who killed you. Like how did you recognize us?"

"And what did you do to Eikichi?" Kuwabara demanded.

"And why did you keeping running away, dammit!" Yusuke shouted the loudest, obviously angry he wouldn't be fighting anyone.

In a small voice, Saika responded, ".. because you chased me?"

"The talentless girl received visions of all of our lives. It's all in here," Hiei withdrew the journal forcefully from Saika's jacket. "Everything. She had known about the Spirit Detective long before he was one."

"Then how the hell-" Yusuke started, but bit his lip. "Dammit!"

Kurama received the journal and began to finger through it. Saika reached up, trying to take it back from him, but Hiei quickly slapped her hands away like a reproachful teacher.

"I'll give you the full recount later, Kurama. I think we've found the one who's been killing off psychics, though she's remarkably less powerful than I hoped she'd be. You can give Koenma the full report later." Because, as anyone knew, Hiei surely wouldn't.

"Hiei," Saika called to the fire demon.

His eyes sharply turned to her. "What?"

"Someone's coming."

"I feel something, too. Something big." Kuwabara added.

"Obviously there's something moving in this direction," Hiei dismissed.

"Something _really_ big," Kuwabara furthered.

Just then, the ground shook. Not too noticeably, not obnoxiously so, not like a gigantic stomping that the Red Queen's gigantic bird. It was more of a slow rumble, as though the earth was trembling with fear for that which tread upon it.

Around her, Saika saw all of the men harden their stances and wait. There was only a moment, a frozen, still second of calm before the storm.

Then, a roar broke out over the trees as a grotesque extend-o neck reached far over them. It was a noise unlike any other noise, like a five or five hundred small voices that came from the same muzzle. Every key, pitch, note was broken into with mirror-shattering terror. As a start.

The monster knocked aside the trees as it came from the woods into the flat field which Saika had paved. Swinging from its neck was a gigantic rubber-looking collar with a chain from which comparatively small red demon was swinging. The beast roared again.

The chain swung all the way around and the red demon, who appeared to be female, landed atop a saddle on the beast's shoulders. She was screaming, but not from terror.

"Ha-HA! Yippee cay-YAY mutha fuckas!"

Aside from her fear, Saika was slightly confused.

"Woo-HOO! Hellooo, girls! Meet the mutha-fuckin' Jabaaa!" Clearly, she was having way too much fun.

"What-?" Everyone else had the healthy dose of fear for seeing such a terrible beast appear out of nowhere, but Kurama was the most shaken of any of them. "It _can't_ be!"

"Kurama, tell me you know what the hell that thing is!" Yusuke called over the resounding sound of chaos as the beast opened its mouth to shriek again.

"I wish that I didn't. I think that- I think that it's the _Jabawoki_- but how is that even possible?"

"Haha! That red bitch is gooone! Mama Zetsu's in charge now! Sick 'em, boy!" Zetsu pulled up the slack of the chain and the monster fell in upon the Spirit Detective and others. They scattered all in separate directions, Kuwabara grabbing Getsuno and Hiei grabbed Saika.

"Stay here and don't die," he ordered and he dropped Saika roughly by her arm onto the ground.

Hiei drew his sword again, which he had sheathed when Yusuke and the others arrived. Hastily, he ran toward the Jabawoki.

"Hiei, _don't_!" Kurama called with startling conviction that set ice into Saika's bones.

The monster, which appeared to be a sort of chicken-looking dragon, swung a clumsy forefoot at Hiei and he leapt away to avoid it.

"What is it, Kurama?" shouted Hiei, whose patience was gone completely, if he had any in the first place.

Kurama took a vine from a nearby tree and swung lasso-style toward the creature. The vine ensnared one of its clawed feet, but as soon as it did, a bolt of electricity zapped through the vine and followed into where it was connected to the tree.

The entire tree burst into flames.

Hiei sheathed his sword.

"What is that thing, Kurama!" Kuwabara shouted, having not yet drawn his spirit sword for fear of losing Getsuno. "It's- power!-" Kuwabara was stricken speechless by the sheer weight of energy that seemed to be bursting out of the monster. It was Saika times a thousand.

"There's no doubt about it. That's the Jabawoki."

The demoness atop the Jabawoki, meanwhile, was thrown in fits of giddy laughter.

"It's an archaic monster of the Makai- I've only seen once, a long time ago. It's feathers are electrically charged and its scales are impenetrable."

"Then how do we kill it!" demanded Yusuke, but Kurama couldn't respond, partly because the situation seemed hopeless and partly because the Jabawoki sat back on its haunches, charged its feathers visibly, and then really charged toward, of all people, Saika.

It leapt upon her and stood where she had been, looking around for her. Saika was sure death had enveloped her till she opened her eyes and saw Hiei again above her. He was across the field and facing the sparkling monster. Saika bent over and threw up.

"Little _girl_, little _girl_! Where are you now? Human _girl_!" Zetsu turned, holding the chain still, and the Jabawoki turned with her. "Come on, you're at lot less powerful than they said you'd be!"

The Jabawoki opened its mouth and from within a long extend-o throat came out, with a smaller mouth attached. Hiei nearly drew his katana, but it was rendered unnecessary when Saika lifted her arms above her head, causing a purple thrush of energy to encircle them both.

The mouthed tongue was repelled, flying back and taking the giant Jabawoki with it. The beast released a pained cry.

"Woah," Yusuke voiced what all the others mouthed.

Kurama's eyes narrowed. He said, "I think we might have a chance. It's slim, but it's worth trying."

His and Hiei's eyes met, and after a small conference over which the plan must have been conferred, they mutually nodded. Kurama went to Kuwabara, who must have been in on that conversation, and handed over Getsuno, whose body at that point was deteriorating.

"I'm sorry I couldn't have been more help," he grunted in pain, feeling the fake body burn under the fire his real soul. He wouldn't be much longer.

"Don't be." The two ducked under the cover of the trees near Saika..

"Woman," Hiei addressed Saika. It took a moment before she realized that he meant her. "Do you want to go home to see your family?"

"My family?" she asked, as it seemed like such a foreign, dreamy concept.

"Let me rephrase," he huffed. "Do you want to live to see tomorrow?"

"Yes," was her immediate response.

"Then you need to do now what I saw you do before. You have to _fight_ this thing."

"Me?" she trembled at the thought.

"Yes, _you_!"

Saika stood slowly, feeling her stomach spin inside of her.

Hiei leapt toward the Jabawoki, then darted for the trees, bounding up while until he was over its back. The female demon atop the Jabawoki saw that he meant to attack her and pulled back on the chain. The Jabawoki itself pulled back, and he landed on the ground.

Kuwabara drew his spirit sword, and though Saika saw it herself, in light of everything she had seen that day and her visions, it wasn't so peculiar.

"Hey! Come here, Woki! Yeah! I mean you! Over here!" Kuwabara was swinging around his spirit sword, extending it toe impressive lengths, but he couldn't get close enough to attack.

"Hey, ugly! No, not you, the one on top! Yeah, you! Why don't you fight like you mean it?" Yusuke had his finger poised like a gun, though Saika had only a vague recollection as to why.

Yusuke's last remark, however, seemed to catch an angry fire inside of the Jabawoki's rider. She visibly clenched her teeth, roared (in near unison with the beast), and set the Jabawoki to attacking again. She moved toward Yusuke, and just as she did, with a cry of "Spirit Gun!", he unleashed a power ray of light upon her and her monster. She turned the Jabawoki's black scaled neck just in time to receive the blow and deflect it from herself, but still he recoiled and moved back with the sheer weight of the attack.

Saika watched this tango of five from afar for a minute, as Hiei attacked from above, Kuwabara and Yusuke attacked from below, and the Jabawoki with its master did all that could be done to dodge and slide in attacks. Attack, deflect. Attack, deflect. Saika had to wonder what their angle was.

That was, until she saw them moving in the direction of the river.

With one haphazard swing of frightened Jabawoki trying to stay balanced, something changed within Saika. A duty set in. A fear subsided. She couldn't rightly say why. Maybe it was the pent up frustration of the whole blasted adventure, or maybe it was the way Hiei kept whispering in her mind, _"Come on, coward!" _

Either way, something was smoldering on Saika's skin. A warmth set into her, and the lavender mist enclosed her.

Saika ran. An instinct was driving her, but it wasn't _flight_.

Not knowing what she would do but wanting to do something before she came to her senses, Saika threw her hands forward and from them came a huge purple flare that caught onto the feathers of the Jabawoki, scaring it and sending it rearing up on its hind legs so badly that it fell to the ground with a giant toppling _smash_.

Zetsu, who had stood perched on top, fell out of the rubber saddle rolled roughly onto the ground. Before she could make any moves, vines and grass entangled her and wrapped all around her. She screamed and struggled and begged and negotiated and spat and swore, but all to no avail.

The Jabawoki tried to stand again, but only got as far as kneeling on the river bank. Hiei's arms were suddenly engulfed in fire as he shouted, "_Fist of the Mortal Flame_!"

The Jabawoki, who was not harmed but propelled by the attack, fell into the water and let out a desperate cry matched only by the deafening buzzing that seemingly shook all three worlds.

Everyone pulled back, as trees around were fried to a crisp and millions of volts were funneled down the river in a fantastic (and horrifying) display of light.

The Jabawoki thrusted out its dreadful tongue-mouth, out toward Saika, and she leapt back for it to land dangerously close to her face.

It fell limp on the ground. The sound of pure electricity subsided and silence resumed. For the first time in a long time, Saika breathed a sigh of relief, though she shouldn't have just yet.

* * *

_Will you look at that. I never intended to abandon this story. In truth, it's been eternity, hasn't it? Haven't updated since summer. But I didn't forget it. I've read books on these flower things, outlined, reread the story itself, took notes, reread Alice, and wrote my own novel. NaNoWriMo and all that. Anyway, the point is I haven't been on in forever. I am truly, humbly, sincerely, pathetically sorry for this. Also, I am truly humbly, sincerely, pathetically sorry for writing this chapter if its no good, but I thought the same of all the other chapters and some of you out there told me that was enough. I WILL finish this story. And believe me, I can't express how thoroughly and honestly I appreciate all of your reviews and support. If you read this, know that I appreciate you. Couldn't post without you. :)_


	17. Delphinium

**_. . . means boldness._**

* * *

_"One, two! One, two! and though and though_

_The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!"_

* * *

There was the peace of knowing that she was dreaming, yet the dreadful horror that she could not control her dream. Just like before.

In that dream, there appeared a long square table set with linen, frilled cloth, silver dishes, porcelain tea cups- Saika herself noticed that she was dressed in Victorian lolita attire. She stared at her own gloved hands and past them, the European-style tea party that stretched long over the horizon and into eternity.

The summer-time sky and spring-time flowers set the scene for any given dream of hers, all except that when she reached for her tea cup, it was filled with red blood. Trying to pour some from the tea pot, Saika found it again to be filled with blood.

Suddenly, Hata appeared sitting across from her, adorned with a ridiculous top hat and swallow tail overcoat.

"What is this?" asked Saika, and she could hear her question reverberate down the endless seats as though invisible guests were whispering it.

"I don't know. It's _your_ vision." Hata's pouting face was propped on his gloved fist, and he looked simultaneously annoyed and smug.

"... are you-"

"No, I'm here. I can assure you of that. I'm just not in control at the moment." Saika could visibly see how uncomfortable it made Hata to admit that. "And I'm here for a reason, too; if you haven't already, you'll shortly be meeting my dear friend Zetsu."

_Dear friend?_ Saika wondered. _As dear as the friend I watched you kill?_

"Is she the red one with horns?"

"The very one! Haha, makes quite a scene, doesn't she? Has she killed anybody yet?"

"She tried."

"And failed? Huh, I guess I should be careful not to underestimate you. That Zetsu- I have to warn you about her. She's a demon of chaos, that one, cousin to a succubus, though that only improves her-prowess." Hata let out a rather sketchy, low growl. "But she thrives off of suffering. She needs it like you need food. Bad things that happen in conjunction. And you, with all the chaos that follows you around- the one that card of yours promises- she surely won't leave you alone."

That was a depressing development. Saika had always prided herself on being perfectly boring.

"But anyway, let's get down to the bone of it, as they say-"

_Who says that? _And somehow through the lucidity of her dream, Saika could afford not to care about the confusing and dangerous situation she was in.

"You have my card still, don't you?"

Saika looked at her hand, and the Tower tarot card appeared in it.

"Well, that one card won't do you much good without the rest of the set." Seemingly from out of his jacket sleeve, Hata flipped the rest of the deck onto the table.

From it, the rest of the table cloth receded into darkness. All of the cups and plates faded into nothing and disappeared down into forever, as though everything in the dream was shrinking away in fear. Saika stared fixedly at those little calligraphed cards.

"Really, it's a shame that I couldn't have spent more time with you. You're such a terribly interesting... subject."

Saika tried not to show how much those words frightened her.

"But now that the _Spirit Detective_ has shown up again, I'm afraid we won't be seeing much of each other." He said "Spirit Detective" much in the way that Saika's stepfather said "_those_ kinds of people".

"Anyway, I thought I'd leave you with a parting gift. From me to you, take these cards as a humble offering of friendship."

"I don't want your friendship," Saika spoke too quickly, then bit her tongue. It wasn't like her to have so much gall, but then, he was in her territory.

"You might want to rethink that. A psychic with your powers could do a lot with these, more than I could ever hope to do." After she continued not to respond, Hata added, "And the White Queen- with that mirror of hers, and powers of your magnitude, you can be sure she won't leave you alone, either, even if you do leave the Demon World. She's been harvesting human psychics for a long time, and you're just what she's looking for. How do you intend to defend yourself? This deck is an ancient weapon of the Underground Isei, just like the Mirror. Only it can rival the power of the Looking-Glass, and if my guess is right, only you could wield it properly. Otherwise, you won't do a thing for you."

". . . why would you do this for me?" Against all of her better judgments, Saika was tempted.

Hata's eyes glazed over; he didn't meet her gaze. "Where I'm going, I won't need them, anyway." There was something about how he said that which Saika couldn't place. . .

"So go ahead. Take them."

Hata slid the deck across the table. Saika spent several moments contemplating the card in her hand, the deck on the table, and Hata's expectant gaze. With her empty hand, she reached slowly across the table and rested her hand on the ancient, red cards. . .

* * *

Saika had forgotten the dreadful stench of the poison purple clouds that hovered over the Makai. The scent was the instantly recognizable-and not the nicest of wake up calls.

Also, Saika found herself hung over something hard, large, and warm, which turned out to be Kuwabara's shoulder. When she instinctively tried to stand, he asked her, "Oh, are you waking up now? It's about time. That tongue thing did a number on you. We thought you got scared to death or something."

"Where am I?" And despite what she could smell, what she knew, Saika secretly wished her mother's voice would answer, "At home, of course."

"Still in Demon World. Don't worry, though. Here, can you stand?" Kuwabara slowly set Saika's feet on the ground, helping her settle as her ankles shook beneath her. She took two steps away from him and toppled to the ground.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, that happens to me. . . sometimes. . . a lot, actually." Saika managed to stand again with Kuwabara's help, and she looked around to see Hiei staring intently at her. He was the first thing that caught her attention, and he held it until Kurama said, "It's no use. I can't get through to her."

Saika looked over and saw something vomitously grotesque, even by Makai standards: Kurama, knelt next to the Zetsu chaos demon, while she was bound to the tree with twitching, writhing vines- so well accenting the black spider-looking plant, attached to her face and climbing into her ears, burrowing into the flesh of her face.

"Nasty," Kuwabara expressed the understatement of the century.

"She's detached her mind. There's no point." He turned to Saika, and his overbearing green gaze had her backing up into Kuwabara. While looking at Saika, Kurama asked, "Hiei, do you think you could handle this one?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Hiei leapt off of the tree branch upon which he was perched and shut his two red eyes, focussing energy into the third one on his forehead.

Expecting something amazing, Saika felt a strange anticlimax. Everyone else seemed to, also.

Hiei clenched his teeth hard as Kurama noted, "You've expended too much of your mental spirit energy in the past twenty four hours."

"Then what do you suggest?" he snarled in response.

They all listened for the wheels to turn in Kurama's head. After a pause, he replied, "Though it may seem unconventional. . . we have limited time before the portal opens. We can't take her into the human world from here; that would be too risky. The only way I see it. . ."

Kurama turned to Saika again, and though she had been anticipating it, her lips trembled for lack of words.

"It's to my understanding that you're a rather. . . talented young psychic, Ms. Ota. Maybe you could help us out in this situation."

"Me? I- I don't know anything, I don't know how to-"

"Don't be _coy_," Hiei spat acid.

"Normally I wouldn't ask," Kurama put up his hands, the picture of a humble house guest. "-but really we're strained for time, and a case like this calls for your specific- _abilities_. I wouldn't ask unless it was absolutely necessary." His gorgeous green eyes expressed the utmost seriousness, but a twinge of his amused lips made Saika think question.

"Besides, you've been wandering around the demon world for a good four hours and you're not dead yet. That's more than I would have bet." Yusuke, still upset at not being able to fight anyone, was unusually callous, picking at something preoccupying in his ear.

"Yeah, you can do it, can't you?" Kuwabara encouraged her from over her shoulder.

"What would I have to do?" Saika breathed in a tender voice that annoyed Hiei down to his core.

"The same thing you did with the damn cat. You've seen it done before. Meditate out of your body and focus your energy into the passed-out subject. It's not hard." Hiei was clearly annoyed by a lot of things.

"Like, focus my mind. Onto hers. In dreams."

"Exactly," Kurama assured. "I would never ask you to fight her, just draw her out. You certainly have power enough to do it." Hiei, behind him, made a deep noise of dissent.

"But. . . but how do I 'meditate' out of my body?"

"You pass yourself out. It's not difficult," Hiei answered.

". . . I don't think I could do that."

Before anyone could respond, Hiei's eyes narrowed dangerously, and in a split second, he appeared quickly beside Saika, took the hilt of his sword, and slammed her over the head with it.

* * *

When the pain subsided and darkness had overcome her vision, Saika found herself absorbed into another dream all too soon. The first thing she saw, down an apparent eternal abyss, was Hiei, standing arms-crossed before her, whose body seemed to glow. Looking down at her own hands, Saika saw that she was also glowing, too, but that wasn't what attracted her attention.

"You hit me!" she breathed sharply in accusation, a sound which might have been a shout or shriek if anyone else had made it, but in Saika's case, she only hissed.

He snorted and turned down the floorless path of darkness. "You wouldn't passed out any other way. Besides, it was better I did it quickly before you had time to think about it and. . . _scare_ yourself." _Or block me, _Hiei bitterly allowed himself to think.

Saika chased after him, if only because she didn't want to be left alone in the darkness. Hiei had hit her- on numerous occasions! Her mother had never even hit her!

"Where are we? Where are we going?"

"Wherever you take us. I'm only here because you're forming the bridge."

"Bridge- to where?" But then, the question answered itself. As they walked into what seemed like a forever of blackness, a mist of realer substance was forming and become more solid the further they went. Before long, Saika found herself walking inside of what seemed like firewood-burning with red and just as hot.

Firewood, indeed, or what might have been a western conception of hell. Alongside the walls of brimstone and the boulders which held distorted doors to fit their shapes, Saika came finally upon a door which was not marked with ancient hieroglyphics and demonic calligraphy but which held a frightening familiarity.

Saika, being followed by Hiei, rapped her fist around the door knob, which was surprisingly cooler than the rest of their surroundings. It had a coolness, a comfort, and glassy touch that reminded her of home.

When she opened the door, she was there.

Home, that was. Saika pushed open the door and stared in disbelief at the hallway which she knew so well. Double checking the rest of her surroundings, the fire and the brimstone, Saika looked again into what undoubtedly was her house.

"You know this place?" Hiei asked, sensing her shock.

"This. . . this is my house."

Hiei made a throaty "hm" of recognition, and though this held significance which Saika did not know. She didn't bother to ask.

She stepped slowly onto that too-familiar doormat and instinctively began taking her shoes off, but one quick glare from Hiei kept her moving.

There was something eerie about that hallway which she knew so well; the family pictures which she knew so well looked particularly sinister, and every closed door to the bathroom, to the laundry room, they all seemed to hide childhood monsters of yore. At that point, Saika wouldn't have been surprised.

The hallway opened up into the living room where the lights was off, and the blinds were drawn. The light in the open kitchen to their left was on, and Saika slowly turned the corner, expecting a many-eyed octopus to be reaching out of the freezer.

Instead, to her terror, Saika saw, bent over at the stove, her mother.

Kaya-it seemed-turned around, carrying a pot in her oven mitted hands, which she set on the island counter.

"Saika," she cooed in a voice which echoed through the room and up the stairs, imitating every intonation of shocked joy. She took off her oven mitts and stepped forward with open arms.

"Mom," Saika called. She took a step forward but was halted by Hiei, who grabbed her wrist. He shook his head.

"What are you doing, Saika? I've been so worried about you. Come here." Kaya took another step forward, her face the perfect mask of love.

"That's my mom," Saika insisted as she failed to wrench her hand from Hiei's stone grip. "That's my mom! Mom!"

"It _isn't_ your mother!" Hiei insisted as Kaya moved slowly forward with her arms wide open, cooing and calling like a Homeric siren.

"What are you doing? Come here, Saika. I've missed you so much. We all miss you."

For a moment, Saika stopped struggling.

A man moved in from the shadows- a shadow, himself. It was a man whose face Saika treasured better than any man.

"Daddy," she whispered.

The shadow of Saika's father wrapped his arm around Kaya's waist and said, "Come home, Saika. Everything is all right. Come home."

"I don't understand," Saika whined in a voice that trembled from deep within her.

"You don't have to," the deceptive image of Kaya shook her head. "Come sit down, Saika. Everything is all right."

"This is just an illusion. By entering her mind, you've allowed Zetsu access to yours. She's using your memories against you. Don't give in. Don't believe her. Otherwise she'll overtake you."

Saika only stared on, board straight. Hiei couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"Come on, Saika," spoke her father. "Your mother misses you. I miss you. Your family, your friends we all miss you."

Those two pictures of human love and warmth, their eyes smoldered. Their faces dented in all the right places, giving the illusion of sincerity.

Finally, in a distant, dry voice, Saika said, "You're not my parents. You're not anything. You don't know anything."

The masks broke.

The proverbial masks of the illusions, that was, and then, so did the floor.

The floor cracked open across the house between the two pairs of pseudo-people. It split apart, opening the ground to a burning magma hell below, and the illusion of Saika's father burst into fiery ash and fell apart, incinerated. Simultaneously, Saika's mother had her own horrible transformation, her face moving back into what resembled Zetsu, her skin re-reddening, but it wasn't for long, because as the roof caved in around them, she rose to the form of a giant, red dragon.

"It's just an illusion!" Hiei shouted over the sounds of burbling magma and falling dry wall, which dusted their faces. It took all of Hiei's willpower to remind himself of just what he told her.

The dragon, meanwhile, grew and grew, towering above them, all scaled and spiked, like a slinky unfolding, scales coming out of scales.

Saika was stricken speechless, and Hiei tightened his grip on her wrist even though she no longer struggled to go anywhere.

When the dragon had reached her ultimate height, she let out a ground-shaking roar.

"You know what this is, don't you?" Hiei shouted to Saika over the sounds of the growling dragon, the growling earth. "You've done this before! It's like lucid dreaming! You wrote about it in your journal. Just don't fear her, and she can't hurt you!"

At that time, the dragon blew a throat-full of fire on the two of them. Saika covered her face but realized it felt more like a cool breeze than anything.

Upon realizing the small effect she had, the dragon made a frustrated face, then much more quickly resumed the form of a humanoid demon she originally had. The return to her original form looked something like a mouth-blown balloon being released.

Her blank face broke into a maddened smile as she took the form of Saika herself, then from shadow drew the image of Kaya and a knife which she held to her neck.

"_NO_!"

That terrifying illusion, which might have been the most effective, disappeared, as Saika's frustration and rejection of the thought sent another burst of energy through their entire connection, tearing the thread of minds and severing it.

The world around them was consumed in purple, and then darkness.

* * *

Saika's foremost thought was ridding herself of the image of ending her mother.

Once that searing image had cooled in her mind, she found herself awake to another scene of chaos.

Zetsu's shrieking was what had first caught her attention. They weren't pained shrieks, though, as she first interpreted. No-they were absolutely excited. Giddy, even, as she burnt and overflowed with flames of purple, giggling all the while.

The boys stood back, as she consumed the destructive purple flames which consumed her.

"She redirected Saika's energy," Hiei explained, as he had, too, woken up.

"So this is what she wanted," Kurama grimaced as he brandished his rose whip. "It explains why she receded, despite the toll it would take on her spirit energy and mind."

Zetsu stood, laughing insanely and glowing in lavender. Kurama tried to ensnare Zetsu with the rose whip, but it burnt off almost immediately. Kurama's note to self: spirit energy burns ten times faster than regular fire.

Kurama had to throw it to the ground to keep his hands from being burnt, too. Zetsu moved slowly forward like a sickly joyful zombie, and Hiei tried to strike her with his sword. The blade was practically deflected by the spirit energy.

"Everyone, _get down_!" Yusuke shouted, then followed it up with a blast of his Spirit Gun. Zetsu appeared to have been hit, but then she immediately bounded up when the Spirit Gun was fired in her direction, causing the misfire to pass through innumerable trees down the line of the forest. That first, closest tree which she had been tied to before toppled forward, broken, onto the spot where they were all standing, forcing them all to jump for their safety in different directions.

Saika leapt aside just in time, barely missing being crushed to death, and she looked up from the ground where they were currently standing. Dust rose everywhere, but from it Hiei jumped on top of the fallen tree to see on either side where Zetsu was.

She appeared too quickly to be stopped beside Getsuno, who was leaning against a tree a few yards away, aside from the fallen tree. No one could reach her in time.

What she did next, Saika did not understand.

That was, Zetsu bit hard down into Getsuno's helpless neck. Saika thought she might be trying to tear out his jugular artery, albeit in an ineffectual and repulsive fashion, in an attempt to kill him. But instead of just biting and ripping, a strange smoky essence began to emanate from her, combined with the Saika's purple spirit energy, and Zetsu's very physical form ghosted away into the bite which she had given him. It was like something out of a terrible horror movie, made all the more terrible by the fact that it _actually happened_. Right before their eyes.

"Getsuno!" Kuwabara called out in concern, but it was far too late. She took his body. Getsuno's own voice cried out in pain, but that same cry was overpowered by a louder one, Zetsu's voice, crying out in victory.

"There's nothing we can do now. She's possessed him," Kurama explained, an intonation of hopeless loss in him which Saika I had expected to hear. Still, she saw his emerald eyes steeled over with determination.

"Like hell there is!" Yusuke refused, going to Getsuno's body and shaking it by his collar-rather, her collar. "Get out of him, you crazy bitch!" He delivered one strong punch across the face, but Zetsu only laughed.

"You can't hurt me! You can only hurt him! And I can keep his soul in here as long as I want!"

"You've made one mistake, though," interjected Kurama. "That's only a temporary shell of a body, Spirit World limited. It won't last you for long."

Zetsu's-Getsuno's?- smile twisted into a jaw-locked grimace. Apparently, she wasn't much of a planner.

"And what can you do?"

"We can wait," Kurama immediately responded. Yusuke jerked up his gaze, as it was all he could do; he didn't seem too keen on the plan.

For a while, Getsuno (but Zetsu) and Kurama only stared on. Their shared gaze put to rest any concepts Saika had before of things like malice, contention, and conviction. Behind that mask, that skin which had been fabricated to look like Getsuno, there was soul which poisoned Getsuno's and molded his face to show expressions which were not his own.

Their staring contest ended only when Zetsu's face-no longer Getsuno's, but Zetsu's-contorted into a spiteful grimace.

"And just how long do you intend to wait?" And with that, Zetsu withdrew a knife which had been hidden in Getsuno's clothing-probably because Getsuno had desired to help in the mission, ironically enough. Zetsu with Getsuno's hand took the blade and plunged in powerfully into the shared torso.

A man's pained scream broke out of Getsuno's mouth, but Zetsu recaptured it.

Kurama started and Kuwabara cursed her, but it was Yusuke who grabbed her by the collar and delivered a skull cracking punch straight down into the face. That head jerked back with the force and then bounced right back up, like some kind of sickening bobble head.

"Do whatever you want! I split up this body however I want, and I'm sure to give me all the nerve endings," Zetsu's cackled in her sick delight. She plunged the knife into Getsuno's body again, and Yusuke held her hand away from the blade, dug cruelly into a non-fatal place.

Kuwabara moved down to the legs and tried to hold the writhing body down, but Zetsu made every horrifying effort to jerk, twist, and slam Getsuno's shell into every place she could, clawing at the skin and biting at the cheeks. Saika had never seen anything like it, and never would again-a body trying to destroy itself, so very, very desperately.

Meanwhile, Zetsu shouted, "He's mine, he's mine, he's all mine!"

Just then, a force pulled Saika's hair back as though a wind were blowing-when in fact something was sucking.

"The portal! It's opening!" Kuwabara looked back, allowing Zetsu the opening to kick him in the face, flip over, and begin clawing at the knife still dug into Getsuno's abdomen.

Because of the torn worlds, the communicator watch as Yusuke's watch garbled momentarily back to life. Through static, Botan's voice came: "Yusuke! Hurry! Koenma could only open it for a few minutes!"

They all knew the intensity of the situation-a forced entryway could only be made every so often without inflicting too much damage on the barrier. They had been informed beforehand. Thankfully, Saika had no idea that if it wasn't this portal, it would have to be one found impossibly at random or one opened in two weeks.

"Hurry!" Kurama shouted as he looked on, trying to formulate a plan. Yusuke was wrestling with Getsuno's flinging arms, and Saika was at a loss, listening the sounds of lightning crack between the door of dimensions. Her hair flew in front of her face, but it didn't prevent her from witnessing what happened next.

Hiei took his sword, which had been drawn from before, and plunged it downwards into Getsuno's back. The struggling, wrestling, panic all immediately stopped, as did the writhing of the possessed body. The wound killed instantly. Hiei pulled his sword out, letting the body fall hard onto the ground. If Saika had looked, she would have seen Kuwabara and Yusuke expressing as much horror as she felt.

There was only the silence broken by the crackling, chirping portal.

"Let's go," was Hiei's placid order, and all obeyed except for Saika, who stayed on staring, and Yusuke, who flung the body over his shoulder.

Monsters and threats were nothing compared to what Saika had just witnessed. She went practically limp as Kuwabara grabbed her wrist, told to her hurry, and pulled her along with him into the lightning door.

* * *

Saika's eyes opened to bright day. Her first thought was that the place she was in didn't smell of death.

She sat up, aware that she had fallen onto the ground whereas everyone else had not. It occurred to Saika that all of the fantastic, awful, amazing, appalling adventures she just had in that horror-land were not part of some nightmare. Nightmarish as they might have been.

In the broad daylight, an off-set to the comparative darkness that had just been in, Saika's first sight was Yusuke, madly looking around and shaking sand off of himself. She had never seen that impossible, terrifying punk of a boy so emotional.

"What the hell just happened!"

"It was his body, Yusuke," Botan assured in a soft voice as she gravitated to the ground across from him. Saika couldn't even bring herself to be surprised that the kimono'd girl was riding a flying oar. "It couldn't take the portal. It wouldn't have happened, anyway." Still, even she seemed grieved with what had happened.

(As a side note, Saika didn't imagine how she might have seen or known.)

"Just what the hell were you thinking?" Yusuke grabbed Hiei his collar and lifted the small man off the ground with ease.

"What else did you intend to do?" he snarled in response. "I saw what needed to be done and I didn't. If I had your foolish sentiment, we would be sitting around in the Makai long after the portal closed. Besides, would you really rather let him suffer?" Yusuke threw him down (though Hiei seemed to not have resisted when he could have). Yusuke threw his head to the side, growling and swearing. He marched off through the woods towards the shrine-the one which was just up the hill.

Upon vague reminiscence, Saika realized that this temple had been her original goal on that night which seemed so long ago: Genkai's temple.

Hiei snarled something about "ingrates" and "useless humans" before he spun around and moved so quickly that he seemed to disappear in the wake of his black cape.

Saika was so consumed in her thoughts that she hardly noticed Kuwabara come behind her and place his hand on her shoulder. She jumped when he did.

"Are you okay?" For a moment, she was captured in the honesty of his gaze. The swift transition from death threats to earnest concern gave her mental whiplash. Could it all have been a dream?

Saika sat there staring at Kuwabara, who became oddly unsettled, but the moment was broken when a blessedly familiar voice came ringing down the hill.

"_Saika_!" And she turned to see her mother coming down towards her.

The sight was like a vision. Saika ran, ran desperately and faster than she thought she could, until she met Kaya halfway and threw herself into her mother's arms. She didn't know just when, but they both began to cry.

They sat on the hill like that for a while, hugging and crying, promising and whispering, both swearing never to part like that again, to scare like that or be so scared. Soon, they would find-empty promises.

Yatsu came down to the pair and called them back up to the temple, Saika thought for her comfort, as she didn't listen to the reason he gave.

Holding onto each other as thought letting go would cause them to fall, the mother and daughter moved into the dark, warm temple room. The sliding door was slammed shut behind them, and Saika saw that Kurama had done this.

There was a domineering old woman sitting and staring at them down the tea table with a pipe in her mouth and a frown on her face. Even sitting, Saika thought that she couldn't have been more than four feet tall.

"Now, to discuss the things to come," she sighed as though this tearful reunion of family was only an annoyance to her. (Which, in fact, it was.)

"What things to come?" Saika asked in a voice that was not her own, then realizing that it was her mother who had asked exactly what she was thinking.

The lack of sleep she had endured in the night passed was taking its toll on her, and sleep began to eat at the corners of her conscious.

"Everything we've been discussing, what else?" Genkai snapped at Kaya. Had Saika any capacity left for it, she might have wondered what they had been discussing.

"But. . ." Kaya looked down at her daughter who leaning upon her, and Saika felt that pained expression more befit a woman giving her daughter to marry a slave trader.

But Kaya would never do that.

"Just. . . let her rest for now, please. Give us a moment. She can rest for now. We can worry about everything else later. Just let her rest."

After standing and walking to the cracked open sliding door on the room's left side, Genkai took a long puff of her pipe. "The girl can rest for now," she slowly granted.

But by then, with her head resting upon her mother's knee, Saika was already gone.

* * *

_Author's Notes:_

_Okay, so obviously you can guess my schedule by now. If my story's worth it, you'll stick with me, won't you? I promise it'll be worth it! O; I am a student. Forgive me. I appreciate reviews; they make my day. Tell me what you thought of this one... I began it immediately after finishing the last chapter, but I wrestled with it for a while. In certain parts I took special care of my wording, and in others I was lazy. Is the inconsistency obvious? Was the end to rushed? It felt that way. But no, as you might have guessed, Saika's adventures in wonderland are not nearly concluded yet- good news is I've outlined to the end of the story thoroughly, but you'll just have to be patient if you want it. And oh, I do so hope you want it. There's no point to it without you guys._


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